Redesigned
by jewelthebrat
Summary: Hunter Taylor has recently come into quite a bit of time on her hands, and thinks watching Red vs Blue is the best way to pass it. Unfortunately, this ex-military woman bites off a lot more than she can chew when a kidnapping lands her right in the beginning of her favorite web series. Can she help the guys out, or will she just get them in more trouble? OC/Tucker
1. Blue Gets a Delivery

**Hello readers, and welcome to my latest and greatest.**

 _ **Hunter Taylor has recently come into quite a bit of time on her hands, and thinks watching Red vs Blue is the best way to pass it. Unfortunately, this ex-military woman bites off a lot more than she can chew when a kidnapping lands her right in the beginning of her favorite web series.**_ ** _Can she help the guys out, or will she just get them in more trouble? OC/Tucker_**

 **So there are a few issues I'm having with this story. One being, I'm not that familiar with military stuff. Google can only get me so far, so I would like to make one blanket apology right now.**

 **I'm sorry for any mistakes or weird things that I get wrong in this story at any point,**

 **The second thing is that I am unsure of who I want Hunter to end up with, Tucker or Washington. I have a solution in mind to my problem, but I will get to that later. For now, I hope you enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue.**

* * *

"Wow." I exhaled, sitting back on my bed, staring at my ceiling. The last few episodes were just… unbelievable. Church/Epsilon failing, Carolina falling off the cliff. I couldn't wait for next week for episode twelve to come out.

I had basically binged watched all of Red vs Blue the last few days. I had seen the series once before, but only up until season ten. With the new seasons out, I thought I should refresh my memory before watching eleven through what was out of thirteen, and boy was I happy I did.

Thinking back to all the things that happened to them, I couldn't help but feel empathetic. I understood some of the things they went through better than most fans of the show, being ex military myself.

"I feel so bad for them. I wish I could be with them, from the beginning, help them out. Besides, I could be so badass." I voiced my frustrations aloud into the empty space that was my bedroom.

I had just moved here about three months ago. The house was small, but located in a good neighborhood in a town in Michigan. I didn't have much to start with, and I had bought a few things to make it more like home, but there still wasn't much around.

My room was pretty simple. The walls were painted a nice cream color, the floor hardwood. A black dresser was along the wall to the right of my bed, along with a floor length mirror. My closet was pretty big, no doors or curtains in the way. It was built into the wall in front of my bed, and my door leading to the rest of the house was to the right of it when your looking at it. Minimal amounts of clothes hung in the closet, and those that did were greens, creams, and blacks.

The only thing that was a different color was the stuff on my bed. A dark blue comforter was neatly made on top of it, and two pillowcases matched. The sheets themselves were a lighter blue with dark blue stripes.

To my left was a black side table, filled with random things. A lamp, a book, and my cell phone stood out, because they were the largest. Birth control pills too. Yay being responsible, even if I wasn't currently getting any from anyone.

All in all there wasn't much, and this pattern was seen throughout the whole house. I really should get some decorations or something. Maybe a nice picture.

The sound of something rolling across my hardwood floor broke me from my thoughts, and I moved to look over the side of my bed. Had I dropped something? I didn't have anything on the bed with me except my laptop, and those don't roll.

My eyes landed on a small black canister that had just come to a stop right next to my bed. It wasn't smoking or anything, but I knew it was active.

"Shit" I rolled to the side, grabbing my pillow and just managed to wrap it around the back of my head and over my ears when it went off. A loud noise pierced my ears, the pillow not helping that much, followed with light that was way too bright. Temporarily blinded and deaf didn't mean I couldn't feel though. Multiple sets of hands were grabbing me, and I had the sense of being picked up and carried. Three sets of arms held me, one each at my feet and another held my hands that were stretched out above my head.

I thrashed about, trying to get out of the arms that carried me but they were strong, and had me pinned in such a way that made it impossible. Just as the thought of screaming crossed my mind, someone shoved something cloth into my mouth. Just how many of these guys were there?

I was carried out of my room and down the hall, through the living room and out the front door. By now there was ringing in my ears, and vague background noises. I could see some vague shapes too, just enough to see me being carried out and into the front lawn, where a van was waiting. As we got close the van's doors opened, and I was being loaded in. I kept fighting, twisting, pulling, just struggling really. I would not make this easy for them. But as we started driving away I realized my only hope now that someone noticed my kidnapping. Would my neighbors see? Would someone call the cops and help me?

The men in the van held me down, but they were getting hurt in the process.

"Knock her out." I heard a voice say. Glad my hearing returned for that joyful news. Pain blossomed in the back of my head and my vision faded once more.

"Why are we doing this again?"

"She needs to be able to take on an AI if, hold on, she's waking up. Damn it!"

"Put her back under now, we can't have her…."

"Excuse me. Sleeping person. Its time to wake up now."

"Five more minutes." I muttered to the voice. I just wanted to stay in my bed… only I wasn't in my bed. Scrunching my nose, I immediately became more aware of the cold metal pressed against, well, everything. I opened my eyes and had to blink a few times. I was looking through some sort of glass at blue armor covered feet. Was I on the floor? When did I get on the floor?

Groaning I moved to stand up, every muscle protesting the movement. It wasn't searing pain. Just soreness. Except at the base of my neck. That hurt like a bitch for some reason.

"Oh good. You got up. We didn't have five minutes like you asked. In fact, we are landing right now!" Oh god. I recognized that voice.

Looking around I saw that I was in cargo bay, probably an aircraft one. A tank was strapped down to our left, metal everywhere. Around the walls there were seats with harnesses that I assumed we should be buckled into.

And to my right stood one standard army simulation blue soldier, designation Michael J. Caboose.

 _Adapt to the situation at hand. Gather information. Review later when opportunity arises._

"Where are we landing?" I asked him, having a bad feeling that I already knew the answer.

"We are going to a base in a box!." He said, clearly pleased that he remembered. I was pretty impressed myself.

 _He wasn't affected by O'Malley yet. So he isn't too bad._

"And we are landing right now?" I asked him. Before he could answer, the ground, well ship, beneath my feet trembled and I was thrown to the ground. "Never mind." I said. I knew I should have gotten into one of those seats.

 _Wow. Check out that color._ Looking at my armor plated hands, I finally realize what color I was. A deep shade of blue, but not too close to black that I would be mistaken for it, well maybe in some lights. It was perfect, and way better than camouflage.

I heard two people approaching from behind me. Turning to the back of the cargo hold, two soldiers in white armor with black decals came out of a door. I assumed it lead to the cockpit.

 _Bow chicka bow wow_ Oh god channeling Tucker was the last thing I needed right now.

"Hey, you two, why didn't you buckle up when I said?" One of the men asked.

"Someone decided to sleep instead." Caboose answered.

"Right." The other shoulder said, clearly Caboose had talked to them earlier if they learned to just ignore a lot of what he said. "Well, all we have to do is unstrap this tank, and you two can be on your way to your new base."

I nodded, and went over to help the men unhook the straps that kept sheila from sliding all over the hold. Caboose came up to me, two guns in hand.

"You left this on the floor. Also, your bag. Do you want me to take it outside with mine?" He said, handing me a rifle.

"Sure. Thanks Caboose."

"No problem waiiiit. How did you know my name?"

"It was part of my training." I said, figuring that excuse would come in handy. A lot. I took the weapon from his hands and something blinked in the top of my vision. What the hell was that?

 _Battle Sequence Engaged_ flashed again and my visor brought up a few different items. Wind speed, general temperature, weapons on body along with ammo per weapon, and a targeting system. I had a lot of weapons on me.

 _Would you like to run the tutorial?_ flashed across my vision next. Three choices, yes, no and later. How did I select things?

 _Choose by pressing the up, middle, or down button on the right side of your helmet. Yes is up, no is middle, and later is down._ That text appeared under the rest of the words on my visor. I reached up and gently felt around, finding three buttons. I pressed the bottom button and the words disappeared, but not the other things.

Placing the weapon on my back, the HUD flashed _Battle Sequence offlined_. So that's how you turn it off. There was a menu button still in the very top, _Menu (up)_ it said. I had to remind myself to play with the stuff later. By now the two men had finished unstrapping Sheila and were pushing her off the ship.

"Wouldn't it be faster to drive it off?"

"You know how to drive a tank?" The one guy asked. "Cause we sure don't."

"Caboose. Can you help push the tank off the ship?." I called to him, knowing his strength would be enough to push the tank himself.

As we pushed the tank through the back doors, I caught my first real glimpse of Blood Gulch Outpost whatever number this was. One? Maybe. I didn't remember.

Grass covered some of the ground, with a dirt path going across the whole canyon and dirt patches everywhere. The walls held different shades of browns, and went up at least fifty feet. Blue base was to my right, clearly marked with its signature color. It was rounded, and the base opening was probably around the corner, since we were off to its side. Speaking of around the corner, One off blue soldier and one aqua soldier came around it towards us, one with a sniper rifle and one with a handgun.

Church and Tucker.

"Good Luck Blue base." One of the men said. The got on their ship without another word.

"Holy Shit. They actually did it. The got us a mother fucking tank." Church said as he approached us. I moved to stand at attention, Caboose doing nothing at my side. They completely ignored us, instead going around us and staring at their newest toy.

"Yeah, and two new friends!" Caboose said. I rolled my eyes but made no other movement. I had been through the hazing that comes with joining the army, and most recently the police force. Keep your head down is the best advice, and clearly no one told Caboose.

Still standing at attention, no one noticed. God this was stupid. I hated this the most about being in the army. Luckily, I had worked my way up to being Sargent in the years I had served before being honorably discharged about four months ago. Still, Church needed to be my superior officer, he needed to be the blue leader. So I unfortunately had to demote myself. This sucks.

Oh, and Caboose was talking again.

"So I say to the guy, "how're you gonna get the tank down to the planet?" And he goes, "I'll just put it on the ship" and I go, "if you've got a ship that can carry a tank, why not just put guns on the ship and use it instead?"

"Hey kid." Church said, not looking over at him.

"Yeah?"

"You're ruining the moment. Shut up."

"Oh. Okay. You got it man!"

"You know what? I could blow up the whole God damn world with this thing."

 _Or, you know, yourself._ I almost started laughing, but years of pretending to have a stick up my ass taught me control. Although, I did smirk a little. I was wearing a helmet, after all.

"You know what? Forget what I said before. We can definitely pick up chicks in this thing. Probably two or three chicks a piece." Tucker commented. Alright, so we were definitely getting to some point in the show. I remembered this, vaguely. This was like the very beginning. Episode like two or three.

"Oh man, listen to you. What're you gonna do with two chicks?"

"Church, women are like Voltron. The more you can hook up, the better it gets."

I was paying more attention to Tucker and Churches conversation, but that didn't mean I didn't notice Caboose taking a few steps back from the tank and coming back towards me.

"Psst. Hey. Hey what are you doing?" Caboose faked whispered over to me. I didn't say anything back.

"What are you doing?" Church asked, taking notice of me. Finally, the idiot

"Private First Class Hunter Taylor, reporting for duty, Sir." I saluted, and made sure to not to sound eager or excited or anything really. Okay, a little sarcasm may have slipped by. This majorly sucked, and the last thing I wanted was to be labeled the kiss ass. No thank you.

"See that Tucker, that's how you respect authority. Stand down soldier." He said, then went back to looking at the tank. Sighing, I relaxed my stance.

"Dude, how old are you? You sound like a girl."

"I'm a women, actually." I said slowly. Man were they dense, thinking only men joined the army. My statement got all their attention at least, and they stopped looking at the tank.

"Command sent us a girl?" Church sounded pretty shocked.

"Wo-men. I got my big girl panties on and everything." I specifically said this in hopes I would hear Tuckers line. I'm allowed to be a bit fangirlish. Sue me.

"I've got something big to slip into your panties. Bow chica bow wow." Resisting the urge to snort, I gave him my best glare, then realize he probably didn't see it with these helmets on.

"I've got something big that I can kill you with." I retorted, pulling the rifle off my back and aiming at him. He didn't seemed fazed though.

"A tank and a girl. This is the best day ever. Of all time." Tucker exclaimed. I clicked the safety off my rifle and Tucker quickly backtracked. "Women. They sent a women."

I clicked the safety flip again and lowered my weapon, securing it back into place on my back. Turning to Caboose I decided to address a bigger issue at hand, where would we be sleeping and such.

"I'm going to take our stuff into the base, Caboose."

"Oh. Okay, thanks dark blue lady." He replied as I grabbed a duffle bag that looked like mine from home and one I didn't recognize.

"Call me Taylor." I called back, walking into the base to try and find a room to stay in.

A room I could put my stuff in, and then immediately freak out.


	2. Why am I here?

**Hello readers, and welcome to the next chapter.**

 **I struggled with the ending of this chapter, debating on how I wanted things to work out, and finally came up with this. I hope you enjoy reading it.**

 **Also Filss is spelled this way because her name is actually an acronym, standing for Freelancer Integrated Logistics and Security System. I thought it would be annoying to read F.I.L.S.S all the time, and Phyllis is not her name, technically. So yeah. Onward to the story!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Red Vs Blue.**

* * *

I walked around the side of the base, and entered through the large opening. Everything was metal, and stone gray.

 _How well would this hold up to an actual assault?_

Shaking my head, I tried to focus on the task at hand. There were hallways to my left and right, or another opening right ahead, leading into a wall. I think I knew where that last choice went, but hey, why not explore a little bit. I went forward and to the right, finding a large open area on the other side of that wall.

Dropping the bags, I walked forward to the middle of the room. The floor had a blue design in the middle. It looked like a bullseye, with four rings surrounding a middle point, but a bit more intricate. You could tell a blue circle sat in the middle, but it was mostly covered by a four pronged metal base, holding blue teams flag.

I reached out and grabbed the flag, using my other hand to trace the bird with its wings spread out. The flag was fraying on the ends, and had a hole at the top of its left wing. Clearly this thing had seen battle. Or was eaten by moths while waiting to see battle. I step back, and looked around, seeing nothing else.

I picked up the bags and retraced my steps back to the beginning. I chose to go down the right hallway this time. Walking down and following the curve, I kept my eyes opened, figuring that there had to be a secret entrance to the rest of the base or something so the enemy couldn't just waltz into the sleeping quarters. Well, if these bases were exactly the same, then they would know where ours were, but as much as I hate to say it these guys weren't that smart.

I paused, and rocked my feet a bit, making the ground beneath me creak. I walked back a few steps then forward again. The sound was different, specifically, there was pretty much no sound then a lot of it over one spot then almost nothing again. I scanned the floor, my eyes coming across a latch set near the wall. I set the bags down and pulled up, revealing a ladder down. The light from above me illuminated the hole in the floor enough for me to see it didn't go down that far, maybe ten feet. Shrugging I grabbed the two bags again, and climbed down.

I didn't like not seeing what was down here, the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge, my heart speed up just a bit. I quickly made my way down and hopped off the ladder, ready for a fight just in case. As soon as my feet hit the floor the lights came on down here, and I turned around to see the place where Church, Tucker, and soon to be Caboose really lived. And me, I guess.

I had landed in what was probably the living room. The metal walls continued here, and the floor was concrete. There was a couch, and two comfy chairs, both blue, with a black coffee table in between them. Behind this was two half walls with countertops. They had an opening in the middle to walk to the next area. Bar stools were on this side of the walls, and the kitchen was on the other side. From what I could see from here, there was a fridge, stove, microwave, and a sink full of dishes. Of course.

There was a doorway to my right and left, and I once again chose to go right. It lead to a hallway with a bunch of doors off it. The first door had a sign that said "Church". The next door read "Tucker's room." and underneath a separate "KEEP OUT" sign. There were no more signs when I continued down the hall, and there were six doors in total. Figuring it can't hurt, I opened the door next to Tuckers and flicked on the light.

Inside was a bed with a blue blanket and pillow, a black dresser, and a small closet built into the wall. There was another door in the room too, and a quick look inside showed me that it was a bathroom, with one sink, shower, and toilet. Under the sink there was a storage space filled with a bunch of toiletries. Thank god we didn't have to share a bathroom.

Leaving Cabooses items in here, I moved on and checked out the rest of the doors. Each one was the same generic room as the first. I went back and took the room next to Caboose. Throwing my stuff down, I sat on the bed.

"Holy. Shit." I said out loud. I thought back to what I could remember about the last week, reviewing it in my head, trying to find anything off. I went to work at the station, came home, watched Red Vs Blue, shower, then sleep. repeat that for five days. Friday though, was a bit different. I ran out of Red Vs. Blue to watch. I had said something about wanting to help them.

Then I was kidnapped?

Shooting off the bed, I started pacing the floor. I was kidnapped. Okay, so maybe this was a dream because I was being tortured and couldn't deal with my current reality. Pausing, I considered it but then dismissed it and resumed pacing. It didn't sound right for me. I would be fighting my way out, not hiding from the situation at hand. Adapt, then freak out later. That was what worked in the past, I'm sticking to it.

What did I remember about my kidnapping? They were quiet, when they were walking around my house. I didn't even know they were there until they were on top of me. There were a lot of them too. At least four, maybe five. They knocked me out, and I woke up on the plane with Caboose and a talking tank.

No, I woke up before that.

 _She needs to be able to take on an AI If...She's waking up..._ I remember hearing that, and feeling pain in my neck. I reached up to touch my neck but realized I was wearing this suit. Were they doing something with an AI to me? Did I have one?

I took a deep breath in and stopped pacing. I didn't have one, there was no other voice in my head. They also said If, if meaning I needed the ability to have an AI, but they didn't give me one.

So, lets say the impossible became reality. Let's say I'm somehow really here. Somehow, someway, I got dragging into this mess. What was I going to do? At least for the time being?

 _Do you ever wonder why were here?_ I laughed at that thought. Ah, the question that started it all. The thought made me feel a bit better, a bit more relaxed with the situation, and I realized I could do what I wanted to do, what I asked to do when I was sitting on my bed in my room.

Help. I was going to help. A good portion of what happened had to happen, certain things were a must, but not all of them, and not in the ways that came about. I would hopefully be more successful than all the Churches who went back in time to stop that bomb.

At least I had to try, right?

With this in mind, I made my way out of the room, and up the ladder. I shut the door and walked around the corner, only to freeze seeing the back of Sarge's head as he ran out of the base with the flag.

Donut, not sarge. He is still in regulation red armor until Tex blows him up.

Sprinting out to the Church and Tucker to tell them what was going on, I caught the end of their conversation.

"I can't- I Don't even know how to use the fucking sniper rifle. Don't you know how to drive that?"

"No! Holy Crap! WHO IS RUNNING THIS ARMY?"

 _Technically, you are, or, well, the Director is._ I thought to myself, holding back a snort as I slowed to a walk and approached them.

"Guys. There's a probl-"

"Hey!" Caboose yelled from behind us before I could say another word. We all turned to see him standing near the base. "I just wanted to let you know, the General stopped by, and picked up the flag."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever moron!" Church yelled at him, then turned to Tucker. "Why would they give us a tank, if nobody here knows how to drive the damn thing?"

"Church." I said, a little pissed that he didn't ask me if I could dive the thing. He also didn't consider Caboose, so I guess it was "dismiss the rookies" rather than "Dismiss the women.". He dated Tex, he knew a girl could kick his ass.

"Rookie, I really...Wait a second...what did he just say."

"He said he gave the general our flag, dude." Tucker said. "Oh wait."  
"Why didn't you say something?" Church asked, turning to me.

"Thats what I came over here to tell you. I saw a red leaving with our flag." More than slightly annoyed with our "Commanding officer" I let that annoyance seep into my voice.

"Shit, this is just great. Stupid ass rookies."

"I mean, he had to walk past you two, twice, in order to get in and out, so, ya know, there's that." I said sarcastically.

"Well what were you doing that you couldn't stop him? Fixing your hair, doing your nails?"

"I was putting the bags in the rooms, which I told you I was doing, when I came up to see him running from our base. So excuse me if I wasn't expecting a red to get past you two AND A FREAKING TANK."

Church and I just glared at each other, but the effect was diminished a bit by the fact that the tint on the visors made it impossible to actually see each others glare.

"So...what should we do?" Tucker asked, breaking the silence. After a few seconds Church looked away, focusing on Tucker.

"Lets go to the top, see if we can spot him. Hey Rookie! Follow us!" Church started moving before he finished talking, already walking around to the back of the base and calling out to Caboose at the end. Tucker and I followed, Caboose a bit behind. A doorway was on this end of the base too, only it lead up a ramp and to what I assume is the top of the base. Church had already gone up, and Tucker stopped walking when we got to the bottom.

"ladies first." Tucker said turning to me, but I shook my head.

"So you can stare at my ass? No thanks."

"Aw, come on baby, don't-"

"TUCKER! ROOKIES!" Church yelled, and we all scrambled up the ramp, me shoving Tucker first much to his disappointment. Up at the top, to our left, was the teleporter. Around the edge there were eight points where there were walls, so we could talk cover if being shot at from up here. Most had glowing designs, probably so we could see up here at night. Straight ahead was Church near the edge. We all crowded around the front where he was, trying to spot Donut.

"So let me get this straight." Church said to Caboose. "You gave this guy our flag?"

"Is that bad?"

"Bad? oh no, that's not bad. Next time he comes over, why don't you just help him blow up the whole God damn base?"

"There, there he is." Tucker said, and Church switched his handgun out and raised his sniper rifle to get a look.

"Where..oh, yeah, oh I got him. He's sneaking around back behind the cliffs."

"He must be one smart son of a bitch."

"Or he is completely lost." I said, but was ignored.

"Oh shit… Hey Tucker, look at his armor. It's Red."  
"Oh man, that means it's their Sergeant."

"Or he is Rookie thats new to Red base." I said, again ignored.

"Sargent makes sense. At least now we know how he got by our defenses."

"Uh, you know, he came in the back door where your guys were standing." Caboose said. also ignored. I shook my head.

"Yeah, okay, well let's take him out then."  
"Roger that. Okay, say goodnight Sarge." Church fired off four shots, all way to the left. I could see the red blob that was Donut start to run in circles, clearly freaking out at being shot at. Don't worry Donut, with Church holding that thing you have nothing to worry about.

"Crap." Church said, lowering the rifle. No one said anything. "...What?"

"You're really not very good with that thing, are you?" Tucker said, and I let out a short laugh.

"Shut up Rookie."  
"Oh great, look.' Tucker said, bringing our attention back to Donut, now running back and forth, waving the flag. "Now he's taunting us. That's just embarrassing."

"Alright, that's it. I've had it. Rookies, stay here. Me and Tucker, we'll head through the teleporter, cut him off at the pass."

"Right!" Caboose said, clearly happy to have another task. Tucker slowly moved farther away from the glowing green doorway.

"Tucker you ready? Let's go."

"There is No way I'm going through that thing." Tucker said, his head shaking as he took another step away from the teleporter. Sighing, Church tried to reassure him. Only it came out more pissed than anything.

"Tucker, we don't have time for this. Why would they give us a teleporter if it doesn't work?"

"I don't know, why would they give us a tank tank noone can drive?"

 _Because it has a tutorial program dumb asses._

"We already tested the teleporter, remember?"

"We threw rocks through it!"

Geeze, how did they ever get anything done if all they did was argue all the time? Oh right, because Red team argues about as much as they do. I looked over to see Donut still running around pretty much the same spot. Idiot.

I focused back to the conversation at hand when Church raised his gun and pointed it at Tucker. What the hell was he doing? Did he do this in the show?

"You wouldn't." Tucker challenged, but his voice was unsure.

"You know, I look at it this way: Either A, we go through there, and get the flag back, or B, we stay here, and I get to kill you. Either way, I win."

"For the record, I want you to know, Rocks aren't people."

"Duly noted. now get in there."

"Crap...Alright. One, two…" Tucker runs right into the teleporter, and disappeared. We all turn and look to the spot where he is supposed to turn up, but he didn't appear. Right, he pops up later. Okay, this is going exactly as it should. I think.

"He didn't come out the other side." Caboose pointed out.  
"No, no he didn't. Did the rocks come out the other side right away?" I asked, curios.

"Yep...I'm just, uh...I've decided I'm not gonna use the teleporter." Church said, then jumped off the edge of the base. Our armor has to have shock absorbent boots or something. That would be awesome. I wonder how I could test the armor's resistance. Maybe I'll find a way later.

"Stay here rookies. I'll be back with the flag!" He ran off, leaving me with Caboose.

"What to play a game to pass the time?" He asked me.

"I think we should watch what happens, in case they need help." I told Caboose. He nodded.

"You're right." He sounded disappointed, and I sighed.

"I'll play a game later with you, okay?"

"Okay!" And now he was back to happy. I liked Caboose will enough, but I could also see how it would be frustrating to have him as a team mate sometimes.

Neither of us spoke as we watched Church run out to the middle of the field. Soon, Caboose would need to go hope into Shelia and "Rescue" them.

Wait a minute.

"Caboose, I need you to watch what is happening very closely. If anything bad happens, and you think they need help, come to the tank."

"Okay Taylor."

I ran down the ramp and around the corner. I fully expected to see Church, the future one, but there was no one there. Was I wrong? No, he definitely tried to fix what was about to happen by turning off friendly fire protocol. Right? I ran around the Tank, just to be safe, but no one was there.

"Filss, activate." I commanded the tank. The cab lit up and the cannon lifted up.

"Hello and thank you for activating the M808V Main Battle Tank. You may call me Filss."

"Filss, how many people do your sensors pick up in this canyon?"  
"Sensors are picking up the two of you, as well as one out in the field, and three more at the other base."

Six in total, but there were eight of us. Tucker probably wouldn't be picked up on the sensors, his particles off floating in la la land or something, which left Church. Who, duh, wasn't a person.

But if future Church was nearby, referring to him as an AI may just freak him out. He wasn't supposed to have that knowledge until way later. Why was this so difficult?

"Anything else picked up?" I asked carefully.

"One anomaly in the field." That must be Church then.  
"That's the only anomaly?"

"Correct.

"And no one has activated you since your arrival at this base?"

"Correct."

I sighed. There were theories I had read, about if they truly went back in time or what was real, and I guess I had just found the winner. Gamma was messing with Church, trying to create another AI, and so he forced him to relive this part of his life, trying and always failing to help. None of his adventures in time actually happened.

But then how was Captain flowers dead, and sheila's name changed. Maybe Flowers really did die from a heart attack? It was possible. I guess I could fix the rest of the shit too then. Right?

But turning off the friendly fire protocol would kill Church. Could I really do that? I didn't really have much of a choice, did I? His death, although sad, was the starting point to literally everything. Plus, he wouldn't really die. What else did Future Church try and fix only to make things the way they were? He untied Tex. He stopped the bomb. That he probably did do, Gamma finally giving up and allowing him to save his friends for real.

Not killing Church would be the ultimate help for them. Everything would stay the same. But Church wouldn't find out who he really was, he would be living a lie. Tucker wouldn't reach his full potential, always just being a dick instead of a leader. Carolina wouldn't get her closure, no one would take down project freelancer.

The meta would basically take over everything.

"Filss, name override. Designation Sheila."

"Confirmed." Her cheerful voice stated back.

"Disable friendly fire protocol."

"Friendly fire protocol is now disabled. Friendly forces may now be targeted by Auto-lock."

There was no time to change my mind, as Caboose came running around from the base.

He just hopped right inside too, shutting the canopy. Filss picked up the person inside her as the person she should now take orders from, and gave her standard hello to him, now with the name Sheila.

"Would you like me to start the tutorial program?"

"Oh that'd be very nice. Thank you." Caboose said.

"Tutorial program activated. This program is intended to instruct non-certified personnel in the use of the Scorpion class tank. Let's begin with some driving."

"Okay."

The two of them took off towards the middle field, leaving me literally in their dust. As I stood there, watching Caboose drive off to kill Church, I couldn't help the little shudder that went through me.

What the fuck did I just do?


	3. Don't Ph34r the Past

**Disclaimer: I don't own RVB.**

* * *

 _I'm the team killing fuctard._

Snorting at the thought, I tried to focus on what I had to do next. No matter if what I did was wrong or right, I was stuck with it now. I had probably screwed up big time, but there was no way to stop it now besides continuing on with the story line, to a point.

What else did Church "Fix"? I couldn't remember, there were just too many details in the show, and I had seen twelve seasons in a couple of days. Apparently not everything happened, and there were time gaps. What was I supposed to do for fourteen months while waiting for Washington to show up? That was going to be hell.

Okay, focus on the now. I think Church ran after Caboose and Sheila, so maybe I would start there. Somehow he ended up with his dead body, and kept Tucker from getting his sniper rifle. He probably uses that later in the future.

The sounds of Shilas cannon hitting its target echoed through the cannon. More shots were being fired and hitting the rocks, making them crumble. Although I knew I was behind a rock in this stupid canyon, and that I wasn't even being fired at, my body froze with the sounds, remembering six months ago.

 _A sharp light pierced my vision as the sun above our heads hit something reflective, and I turned my head down fast, making me catch a glimpse of the uniform on my body. A sandy color had replaced the usual dark green camo, and my combat gear was strapped in place. It weighed me down, and restricted my movements a bit. It also was combining with the sun to make me sweat. It dripped into my eyes, down my back, but I did my best to ignore it. I had a more pressing matter than my own comfort._

" _Sir, it would be suicide to go in." I said to Staff Sergeant Rivers next to me._

" _This is an order, Sargent. Tell those men to move." He commanded. Glaring at him, I barked out the order to take the compound we were surrounding._

 _Gun fire and bombs went off everywhere, the dirt and dust being kicked up made it hard to see._

 _Time seemed to skip, and Sargent Rivers went down on my left. I ducked down and tried to move his body behind shelter to our left. All around us people were crying out. We were losing, that much was certain._

" _Not going to say I told you so?" Rivers asked me, as I got our a medkit and packed his stomach wound._

" _What's done is done. The question is are we going to live to tell about it?"_

" _Calverley will be here in five. I wanted to move first, say we took it by ourselves, that we didn't need anyone else."_

" _That was a stupid move, Sir."_

The sounds of the cannon fire stopped, but it was too soon for that. The firing should keep going but…. no, I wasn't actually there. My eyes seemed to adjust and the scene in front of me came into focus. I was in blood gulch, not that nameless town in the middle east. I breathed in, trying to calm myself, but it didn't do much good.

 _Breath, than focus. You have a job to do now._

I took another breath and looked out behind the rock I was using for cover and saw Sheila, turning towards the cliffs right ahead of me. The turret spun up.

"New Target Acquired."

"That's not a target. That's Church."

"Yeah, that's right, its me, Church! Whats going on, man!"

"target locked." Caboose was freaking out in the cab, trying to stop what was the inevitable at this point. "Firing main cannon."

A loud boom went off, and Church's body went flying through the air. My heart felt like it stopped for a moment as I witnessed what I had accidentally caused.

"Holy Fuck! Church! are you okay?" Tucker kept yelling as he ran to his friends aid on the cliff's ledge, where he had been blown. I ran up to them, but knew there was nothing I could do. I mean, he was an AI. He wasn't really dead. Which begs the question, who was the man that was dying? Was he already dead, and the AI possessing the body. I thought AIs could only possess the living. Well, O'Malley possessed Captain flowers. So many questions, so few answers.

"Tucker!...Tucker!" Church's voice was fading. These questions could wait until later, much later probably.

"Church. Its going to be okay, man."

"No. Ah...I'm na, I'm not gonna make it. Tucker, there's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?"

'I just wanted you to know, I always hated you. I always hated you the most."

"Yeah, I know you did. Now hurry up and die, you prick."

"Okay." Church made those weird ass noises, and "died" right in front of us.

This was all my fault. Holy shit. I did what Sargent Rivers did. I mean, he didn't _know_ everyone in the squad besides us would die, but he had an idea of it. I knew. I killed Church.

 _It had to happen. They are needed, and this is what sets it off. They can save a lot of people, and you can save them from the unnecessary pain. This wasn't unnecessary pain._

"We should go see how Caboose is doing." I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. I took a breath, and tried to loosen my tense muscles.

"Why? He killed Church."

"Yeah, but if he dies then it's just us two against like four reds. Plus their robot. "

"They have a robot?"

"Yeah. Didn't you see it earlier?"

"How do you know it's a robot?"

"Okay, well if its not a robot, then its a fifth member of red team. So were already outnumbered five to three."

Tucker didn't say anything for a few seconds, then "I see your point. Let's go."

Tucker took off towards Caboose and the tank, but I took a moment to pick up Church's shotgun. His future self took it, so I can't just leave it here. I grabbed it and placed it in a nearby hole in the wall. I'll come back for it later.

I moved towards Tucker, Caboose, and the Tank then, trying to remember. What else did future Church do? A bunch of little things, but I wasn't really sure what those were anymore. The two biggest were killing Captain Flowers, and killing himself. He definitely didn't save Tex.

Tucker and I stopped next to Caboose in Sheila, and just kept quiet, watching as the tank kept firing at the red teams jeep. Finally Tucker spoke up.

"Why do you keep firing at the jeep?"

"Because it;s locked on!"

"well unlock it."

"Last time he did, he killed Church." I said to Tucker.

"Oh..right..keep shooting the jeep then."

Okay, so what happens next. We call for Tex. She gets the flag back, fixes the tank, dies. Wait, why did she have to fix the tank? Donut doesn't throw the bomb at it until later, when he kills Tex. She can't fix the tank when she's dead.

Oh shit.

Planes flew over our head, and then started turning, coming back towards us, lower than before. I spotted missiles underneath, ready to drop.

"Uh oh. Hey Caboose, you might wanna get out of the tank. Like right now." I said. Both Tucker and I were backing away from the Tank, getting as far away from the incoming air strike as possible.

"Yeah, like now, Rookie." Tucker added.

"I can't figure out how to get this thing open!" Caboose yells, right as the first shell hits the ground.

"Ask it to open the door!"

"Sheila, will you please open the door?"

"Driver canopy open." Sheila went on talking, while Caboose ran away, getting hit as he ran, alternating between yelling "oh crap" and "running"

Caboose eventually ran enough that he reached us, stopping next to Tucker.

"Man that was close."

"Look at the tank though."

We all looked back at Sheila, who was hit pretty bad. She was upside down, and sparks shot out of her at random places.

"I'm scared Dave. Will I dream? Dave? Davvvvvvveeeee"

Here's another good fucking question, who the hell is Dave? The only thing close to Dave would be David, but I don't think she is talking about Washington. Well, maybe she is. I will have to ask her once she is fixed. With that in mind, I focused back on the conversation.

"Sheila's the lady in the tank. She was my friend…"

"Oh, dude! I knew you could pick up chicks in a tank!"

"and what does it say about you that Caboose succeeded first?" I said.

"That you implied that I may not be first but I will get one, so that works for me."

"You are surprisingly resilient. But probably not bulletproof, so before the Reds attack again, can we go back to base?"

"Yeah sure. Lets go." We all started towards the base, before we got very far Tucker veered off towards the spot where Church's body was.

"One second Rookies, I want to get Churches Sniper Rifle."

Caboose and I followed up the path after him, but when we reached the body Tucker was disappointed.

"Oh crap, it's gone."

 _No its behind you._ Literally. In the crevice in the wall. Right behind him.

"Let's just get back and call command, see if they can help us." I said, and started walking back to the base, again. The two followed behind me.

"Yeah, and get this black stuff off my armor."

"Soot. It's soot."

"I don't really care what it is, all I know is I want it off my armor."

"Will as soon as we are back at base, you can take it off and we can get it cleaned up."

"If I knew that's all it took to get you to take my armor off, I would have gone through that teleporter the moment I saw you."

"That was actually smooth, Tucker." I slowly said. Before he could say anything about my compliment I went on to threaten him. "Still, you will keep clothing on at all times while we clean the armor, or I will shoot you."

"So that means when we aren't cleaning my armor, I don't-"

"No, Tucker. Clothes will be worn at all times when not in our rooms or in the showers."

"Aw, man. You're just as bad as Church with your stupid clothing rule."  
We had walked into the base, and started going up to the top to look out for the Reds.

"Caboose, see if you can find some rags. Get them wet with the sink water, wring them out, then come to the roof. Got it?" I said, making sure the instructions were clear for his benefit.

"Yes, I can do that." He went off towards the kitchen instead of following us up. We got to the top and I just looked at Tucker.

"Well?" I prompted after waiting too long.

"You seriously want me to take my armor off up here? Where the Reds have a clear shot at my exposed body?  
"I guess you could do it a few pieces at a time."

"What if I get shot there?"

"You think their aim is that good?" Before Tucker could say anything in response, Caboose came running up.

"I got what you asked for, Hunter!"

"Good job Caboose." I said to him, grabbing a rag and turning my attention back to Tucker, "Start with the Helmet, work your way down."

I paid close attention to the way he was taking the armor off as we went. Asking one of these two how to get my armor off later was not something I wanted to do. I should remember how to get most of the pieces off. His helmet came off easily, his hand sliding under his chin and lifting it off. Similar to what I had seen in the show before. He handed it to me, and his shoulder piece to Caboose.

I rubbed the helmet he had handed me, making the black lift off it and onto my cloth, leaving the aqua color on the armor. While doing this, I was also sneaking peeks at Tucker. His skin was a light brown, smooth and with really no imperfections. His eyes were green, and I'll be damned if I wasn't a sucker for green eyes. His hair was black, and curly, not cut short like I had assumed.

"See something you like, baby?" Tucker said, catching me stare. His eyes had a mischievous glint to them, his eyebrows moving up and down, a smirk clear on his face. I handed him back his helmet, my face heating up inside my helmet. Thank god he didn't catch me.

"Put your helmet back on, before you get shot and ruin that pretty face." I told him. His eyes widened at the compliment for a second, but then his smile grew.

"So you think I'm good looking?"

"Not once I shoot that smug look right off your face" I made sure to sound as cheerful as possible.

"Eh, I'll take it." He said, putting the helmet back into place and taking off another piece of armor.

We had a good system going. When Caboose or I finished, we handed him the armor piece back and got a new one in return. Eventually we were down to his waist.

"Oh no, I am not cleaning your codpiece. Give it to Caboose."

"Oh come on, it won't hurt ya."

"Tucker. No."

"Fine."

We continued on without a problem, until I remembered no one called command.

"Tucker, you gonna call command any time soon?" I handed him back the last piece I had to clean.

"Oh shit. right, here it goes." He played around with some buttons on his helmet. "Come in Blue Command. This is Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. Do you read me?"

"Okay, that is the last of it, your armor is clean now." Caboose interrupted, handing back a piece that hooked onto the back of his leg.

"Did you get all the black stuff off?"  
"Of course we did, that's why we said your armor was clean." I said, but Tucker wasn't listening.

"Hello! Command! We need help!" Vic must be talking on the other line.

"I don't know what the technical military term is for it, but uh, we're pretty fucked up down here. We need men."

I snorted. "Bow chicka bow wow." I said quietly, making me outright laugh a bit.

Tucker looked over at me, and I bet his eyes would be the size of dinner plates if I could see them. Then he got even more flustered with what Vic was saying, sputtering out "No, no, now, naw it- not like that. We need more men to help us." there was a pause, Tucker collecting himself, and then "Yeah that got blown up." He must be referring to the tank. "Yeah, we know." another pause, Tucker looking over at me. "A Sargent? All you sent were two rookies." oh shit.

"Tucker, tell them to send the nearest freelancer our way." I tried to steer the conversation back on track.

"Listen, all we want is for you to send the nearest freelance our way. Can that be done?... Whoever he is, make sure he can fix a tank."

"Who are they sending?" I asked

"A freelancer Tex. Why didn't you tell us you were a Sargent?"

"Because you wouldn't have accepted my command, and I knew that. You wanted to follow Church, and I figured I would just go with it for now, see how your base runs."

Tucker clearly wasn't happy, and was probably going to argue with me, until Caboose opened his mouth.

"What's a freelancer?"

"Freelancers are independent, the;re not red or blue. They're just guns for hire, who'll fight for whoever has the most money." Tucker explained to him.

"Like a mercenary."

"Right. Or like your mom, when the rent's due."

"I get that you're pissed, Tucker, but that's no reason to take it out on Caboose." I told him.

"Yeah, well, he killed Church and you lied, so now thats two rookies I can't trust fighting with me." I sighed, getting his point. In war, you need to trust the people you have on your team to have your six.

"I realize this sounds backwards, but I lied to gain your trust." I winced at my words. A brain to mouth filter would have really come in handy right there.

"Yeah, that makes me feel a whole lot better." Tucker said sarcastically.

"Tuckerrrr….Tuckerrrr…" Churchs voice seemed to come from nowhere, but then a white form

 _Church could do a lot of fun things to scare the red team._

"Who the hell are you?"

"I am the ghost of Chuuuuurch and I've come back with a waaaarniiing…"

"You're not Church… Church is blue. You're white." Caboose pointed out. I sighed.

"Rookie, shut up, man. I'm a freakin' ghost! Have you ever seen a blue ghost before?"

"Yeah that's definitely him." Tucker said.

"Now, I gotta start all over again." Church coughed and resumed using his ghost voice. "Tucker...Tuuuuckerrr… I've come back with a waaarniiing…"

"Is the voice necessary? Because this could go a lot quicker if you just talked." I said, trying to hurry this warning along.

"Really? You too Rookie?"

"It is kind of annoying." Tucker added.

"Fine. Okay, here's the deal. I've come back from the dead to give you a warning about Tex. Don't let-"

"What's the warning?" Caboose asked.

"Shut up for one second and I'll tell you."

"Oh sorry."

"Seriously, man, I mean, I'm coming back from the great beyond here. You think this is easy? It's not. It's not like I just, you know just pop in and out whenever I feel like it, it takes a lot of concentration."

Caboose apologize again, but Church kept rambling on.

"I mean, it's bad enough that you killed me to begin with, but now I come back and I can't even get a word in edgewise, man. ... (exhales) Okay. Here's the deal."

"Is this the warning?"

"Alright, that's it, I swear to _God_ , Caboose, your ass is haunted. When we're done here, I'm gonna haunt you."

"The warning." I prompted. Seriously, how did they get anything done here?

"Okay, Tucker, You remember that I told you I was stationed on Sidewinder before they transferred me here to Blood Gulch, right?"

"No.'

"Sidewinder, isn't that the ice planet?" Caboose put in, and Church seemed a bit impressed at his moment of intelligence. Caboose was actually pretty smart in the sense that, even later on, he picked up on some things that were happening that others didn't, only it gets twisted up in his brain of his. It really is a shame that O'Mally did such a number on him.

"yes."

"Cool, what was that like."

"It was cold."

"That's it? Just Cold?"

"What do you want from me, a poem? It's a planet made entirely out of ice. It's _really, fuckin', cold._ "

"Would you just let him talk?" I said, putting an end to Caboose and Church's back and forth nonsense conversation.

"Alright, well, one day when I was there, everything was just like normal. I remember, I was out on patrol with my partner Jimmy. That Jimmy was a real good kid, everybody liked him"  
"Do you think I was a good kid Church?"

"Tucker, don't get jealous man, just listen to the story, okay? Like I said, guys were hanging around, waitin' for some action, bitching about the cold. Anyway, Jimmy was in the middle of telling me all about this girlfriend he had back home. and that's when Tex showed up. Private Mickey was the first to go. He was halfway across the base when all of a sudden he just started screaming bloody murder."

I get that this was a very serious moment, but I could not help but think back to when I was watching the show, and they were playing the flashback. The guy was shooting at the ground literally screaming "Bloody Murder" and for some reason I found it so funny.

 _This isn't just a show anymore. Its their lives._

That single thought had me sobering up in a heartbeat. For Church, this really happened. He had all these people die around him. Unless the theory of him having implanted memories so he didn't know he was alpha was true, in which case this may never have happened… This whole thing is very confusing.

Cabooses interruption to the story broke me out of my thoughts

"If he's such a bad-ass, why didn't he kill you?"

"To tell ya the truth, I don't know why I'm not dead. Coulda killed me at any point. ...But maybe it's because Tex and I have run into each other once before."

"Where?"

" You, uh.. you remember that girl I told you about, back home? Well, let's just say that Tex is the real reason why we never got married. Guys, I'm fading fast, and I don't know when I'll be back. Just listen to my warning. Don't let Tex get involved here."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Tucker. No fighting, no scouting, nothing. You'll regret it…" Church faded away at this point. He must be having trouble at first keeping himself stable for long periods of time.

"So… Tex and Church were after the same girl." Tucker said. I resisted the urge to smack the back of his head.

"I told you his girlfriend was a slut." Caboose said.  
"Caboose, not nice." I scolded. I caught a glimpse behind him and saw a black figure standing on the outskirts of our base. I tilted my head a bit. So this was Agent Texas.

As she walked towards the base, she cracked her knuckles. Oh yeah, this thing just got a bit more interesting.


	4. Knock, knock Who's there? Me

**A/N - So I'm going to drop this rating down to T and maybe post the super M rated stuff in a different story, or raise it once we get to those chapters. It won't be for at least ten more chapters I think.**

 **I hope everything makes sense so far.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue**

* * *

 _Recap: I caught a glimpse behind him and saw a black figure standing on the outskirts of our base. I tilted my head a bit. So this was Agent Texas._

 _As she walked towards the base, she cracked her knuckles. Oh yeah, this thing just got a bit more interesting._

* * *

The other two finally took notice of Tex approaching.

"Holy shit," Tucker breathed out, and his grip on his pistol tightened. I think even Caboose, the most relaxed person I know, tensed a bit at the approaching figure.

 _Yeah, like you would land a hit_.

Tex stopped in front of us, but didn't say a word.

"H-hey, uh, welcome to blue base. Didn't expect you so soon -"

"Follow." Tex said, her voice modulator masking her feminine voice. She moved towards the back of the base, and the three of us complied and followed after her a few paces behind.

"He is scary." Caboose whispered.

"You." Tex said, pointing at Caboose. "Stand there. Face me." She pointed at a wall. Caboose complied, and as soon as he was in place Caboose raised her gun and fired.

Ignoring Caboose and Tucker shouts of surprise, I raised my gun and aimed at Tex. She moved her arm and was now aiming at me.

"Stand down Agent Texas."

"Relax, I didn't shoot him. Only around him." Tex said.

"You may have used teammates as target practice in the past, but you will not do so here. Understood?"

"I outrank you, Private."

"Sargent."

"Freelancer still wins." She sneered back

"I. Don't. Care. I'm in charge of the well being of this team, this now includes you but I will eliminate any threats to the whole. Stand down."

No one moved, no one breathed. Finally, Tex lowered her weapon, and I matched her movements.

"Welcome to the team, Tucker, fill Agent Tex here in on our situation."

"Right, so…" Tucker's voice faded as I walked down the ramp and around to the entrance to the base. I was starving and hoping to grab a snack before the next fun began.

I holstered my weapon as I entered the kitchen and opened the fridge. Looking around I noticed it was well stocked. Did they get weekly food drops or something?

Finding a couple of apples in the drawer, I grabbed one and went to sit at a stool. I reached under my helmet and ran my fingers around until I found a latch. I pulled up on it, and _Helmet Disengaged_ flashed across my visor before it shut down as I lifted it off.

I bit into the apple and savored the first bite, its sweet and crisp taste hitting the spot, before deciding that I should really eat this fast and get back to the roof.

Finishing it quickly, I found the trash can under the sink, and put my helmet back on as I walked out of the base. Something landed next to me, and I reacted on instinct, pulling my weapon and pointing, only to find Tex. I lowered my weapon.

"Where are you going?" Tucker's voice called out from above us.

"Red base. Kill everybody. Get the flag back." Was the only response from Tex as she took off.

I cursed, but didn't follow after her. Instead I went up to watch what was happening with the other two.

"Church is going to be so pissed." I said.

"About you taking over as leader or letting Tex get involved."

"I'm not taking over as leader. When he gets back, he can have that job. He _is_ going to be pissed about Tex though."

"Caboose, can you look through that sniper rifle you're carrying and see how Tex is doing?"

"I have one? Cool! Where?"

"On your back Caboose." He switched out his guns and seemed pretty excited to be the one watching, that is, until he saw what was going on.

"Man, he is really kicking their asses."

"How come I never get the fucking sniper rifle?"

"I'm really glad Tex is on our team, and not theirs,"

"Sure makes things a lot easier on us."

"Yeah. I think switching Tex for Church was a good trade."

"It definitely seems like you're killing Church is starting to work out for us.

"Ya know, ya think so? You know, I was gonna say something but, uh, well, you know, uh...nuh…"

"I can't believe you two." I said, shaking my head. Both shifted uncomfortable, and Tucker attempted to change the subject.

"Did Tex get in the base?"

Caboose once again raised the sniper rifle and takes a look.

"Yeah."

A voice Suddenly spoke "Blue Team, flag returned." It sounded like it came from behind us. All three of us turned around as Tucker asked who spoke. Church cleared his throat as he became more solid, ya know, for a ghost.

"Sorry, that was me. I, uh, I guess I had something stuck in my throat. Your flag is back, by the way."

"That was fast." I muttered at the same time Caboose pointed out the obvious.

"Hey! Its Church!"  
"Yeah, its me. Hey, Caboose."  
"Hey, Church, what're you up to?"

"Caboose, I'm not really here to make small-talk, okay? How'd you guys manage to get your flag back?"

"Wh-What? Oh, th-that flag? We've always had that."

"Tucker, who do you think you're trying to fool? Hey, wait a second... Where's Tex?"

" I'm not really sure, he said he was gonna go to the store, something about uh, elbow grease.

"Oh great. This is so typical! What was the one thing I told you guys the last time I appeared?

"That Sidewinder is cold?

"What was the OTHER one thing I told you?

"Not to let him get involved?"

"Right. And what did you do?"

"We let him get involved."

"And not just a little involved. How involved?"

"Very Very involved."

"Caboose, look back to the red base, see if you can figure out why Tex hasn't returned." I said.

"Oh shit." The three said simultaneously realizing that, although the flag was back, Tex was not. Which could only mean one of two things.

"Yep, he's definitely captured... Or dead... Captured or dead... Or captured AND dead!" Caboose said. I sighed.

"Oh, well that's just PERFECT!"

"What!? What is your problem!? Why do you even care if he's captured? I thought you hated that guy anyway for stealing your girlfriend."

"I never said I hated Tex. I just said that she was the reason why we never got married.

"She?" Caboose asked.

"Yes, as in female. Tex was my girlfriend."

" Let me get this straight... You're telling me that the guy that showed up here, scared the living shit out of us, shot at Caboose, had a stand down with Taylor, and beat the hell out of the Reds wasn't a guy at all? That he was a chick? And, on top of that, she was your ex-girlfriend?"

"In a nutshell, yes. That's an excellent summary."

"I should have know...She didn't like me...Girls never like me."

"Caboose, I don't think anybody likes you."

"Caboose is likable in certain situations. Combat tends to not be one of those situations, and he seems to be in said situation a lot." I said.

"I like me…."

"And that's what matters most, Caboose."

"I don't think I've seen a girl that mean before. Are you sure she's a chick? And not a guy? Or like, part guy part shark? Tucker asked.

"I'm pretty sure I'd know if Tex was a guy. And I'm definitely sure I would know if she was part shark."

"So that means you two have-" Before I could finish my sentence Caboose interrupted. Thats good because Brain mouth filter wasn't really working right there.

"Wait, oh wait, oh wait. If she's a girl, then why is she named Tex?

"Uh... because she's from Texas.

No one said anything, just stared at Church. Of course, I knew what he meant, but the other two, not so much.

"Trust me, it makes sense. And you can't blame her for being so aggressive. It's not entirely her fault to begin with." Church defended.

"Right. You should blame God. First he makes hangovers, and now, half women, half sharks that won't even sleep with me. Thanks for nothing, God!" Tucker shouted.

"Will you shut up with that? She got recruited into some kind of weird experimental program back during basic where they infused her armor with this really aggressive A.I. I'm not really sure how it all works, but all I know is it made her meaner and tougher than hell."

"A.I… What's the A stand for?" Caboose asked.

"Artificial." Church told him.

"What's the I-"

"Intelligence." I said.

"Ohhhhhhh… What was the A again?"

"Let's move on." Church told us.

"So, the military put this program in her head, and that program made her a killer, but underneath it all she's really just a sweet, down-home girl?" Tucker asked.

"Oh hell no. She's always been a rotten bitch. It's just now she's a rotten bitch with cybernetic enhancements."

"Wow. Sounds like you really won the lottery with that one. Good catch there, buddy. She's a keeper."

"So how're you doing, Caboose? Are you following any of this whatsoever?" Church asked, focusing on Caboose. He seemed to be really concentrating.

"I think so… That guy Tex is really a robot, and you are his boyfriend, so that makes you...a gay robot."

I laughed, while Church just sighed. Man, _that_ was even funnier to hear in person.

"Yeah… that's right...I'm a gay robot." Church sarcastically stated.

"So, Church, got any plan to free Tex?" I asked, vaguely remembering what actually happens next. I think it had something to do with him possessing some of the reds.

"Now that you mention it, I think I have a great plan for how we're gonna rescue Tex."

"A plan? Oh, man, I hate plans. That means we're gonna have to do stuff. Can't we just have a strategy or a ..mission statement? Tucker asked.

"I just need you guys to run a distraction, while I spring Tex." Church ignored Tucker and tried to let us in on his plan.

"Distraction? Heh. That sounds a lot like "decoy." Caboose pointed out

"The way I see it, the Reds have absolutely no idea how many Freelancers we have out here. So all I need from the three of you is to run around in the middle of the canyon, wearing black armor, while I sneak in the back of the base."

"Sounds good. But Church, where the hell are we gonna get three suits of black armor?" Tucker asked.

Church and I both look towards the teleporter, and waited until Tucker followed our gaze.

"...Oh fuckberries…"

"It could be worse." I said.

"How could this possibly be worse?"

"You could be the one that's captured. Or the one that's dead. Or the one that's dead with a cybernetically enhanced girlfriend."

"...True. Okay, let's get this over with."

"I'll go first, I guess." I said, looking at the teleporter. Something was off with theirs, I'm assuming at least, because it works better later once Simmons messes with it, and that's why this will probably hurt even though it works.

"Here goes nothing." I said, running straight forward and into the glowing doorway.

Pain flared across every inch of my body. I couldn't breath, I couldn't focus on anything but the pain. It felt like every molecule I had was being ripped apart at once.

Then it was over. I blinked was realized I was standing out in the canyon, the pain now a distant memory. Huh. I looked down and saw my armor was black.

I quickly moved out of the way so that the other two had room to materialize. Tucker came through next.

"Oh owwww." Tucker said as he appeared.

"I think the teleporter needs to be fixed a bit. It shouldn't hurt like that."

"Ya think?" Tucker said sarcastically. Church appeared next to the two of us.

"You two okay?" He asked. Both of us said we were fine and I pointed out that Caboose wasn't with us. The three of us turned back to our base to see Caboose still on top. Tucker moved a few steps towards the base and shouted.

"Come on, Caboose!"

"Does it hurt?" He called back.

"No, not at all." Tucker and I both yelled back simultaneously. We both looked at each other, knowing we were lying.

"Okay! Here I come!" Caboose yelled out, and ran towards the teleporter.

"Does it hurt for real?" Church asked just us.

"Oh yeah." I said.

"Big time." Tucker added.

Caboose suddenly appeared near us, his armor black.

"Owwwwchie." He said as he got his bearings. Then he looked at me and Tucker. "You lied to me."

"Well it doesn't hurt now, so there's that." I pointed out.

"Alright, listen up. You three need to run around and get spotted by their Sergeant."

"And how will we know if we succeeded?"

"I think the bullets being shot at us will be a helpful clue." I said, sarcasm evident.

"I'll be looking out, and I'll radio you when It works."

"Okay." The three of us said. No one moved, but I think I was the only one waiting for the order.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Move!" Church commanded. We sprung into action, running towards red base. Well, Tucker and Caboose took off. I tried to be a bit more stealth like, ducking behind more things.

Eventually the three of us ended up behind a rock.

"Roger that." Tucker said suddenly.

"Oh, oh oh oh, Tucker, Tucker, Tucker, is that...is that Church?" Caboose asked, a bit too excited. Tucker tried to ignore him and listen to the instructions Church was giving on the radio, but Caboose's voice was loud. "Tell him, that I ...that I said… for me to say hi…"

"Whoa, wait, wait, hey. What? I missed that. Caboose was talking to me. Shut up man, I'm on the radio."

"There is no need to yell." Caboose said.

"I'm not yelling, I'm just telling you to let me finish talking to Church."

"Just tell him,... I say Hi!"

"No, I'll tell him you said "hi" later."

"Can I talk to him?"

"No, you can't talk to him. How could you possibly talk to him on my headset? Oh great, he severed the connection. Now what do we do?"

"We distract the two Reds until Church gets away." I said, shrugging and the darting out from the rock before either one could spot me. I hid behind a rock a few feet to the left.

"Well?" I called back to them. Caboose took off next, and moved towards a different rock than mine. I couldn't see him, but Tucker could I guess, because he was telling Caboose to get behind the rock. Oh, he must be on the other side than. Well that's just stupid, the reds can see him.

"They can't see me. I can't see them!" Caboose told Tucker.

"That's because you're facing the rock." Tucker said.

"Oh. Right." Caboose moved behind the rock now, and I could see him again.

"Real smooth, dipshit." Tucker commented.

"At least he had the balls to move." I said.

"Baby, the whole reason I'm not moving is so I can keep them."

"You think their accuracy is so good that they can hit a mark that small?"

Instead of replying, Tucker moved. He ran across the opened ground and came right to my rock. He got close to me, really close.

"Nothing about me is small." He whispered to me, before taking off again and going to Cabooses rock. My chest burned and I realized that I had momentarily stopped breathing. Jack ass, who the hell does he think he is. I should shoot him.

And what was with the whispering. Usually he wants everyone to hear his jokes, so what was with that. He did run away right after.

"Hey, Tucker?" Caboose yelled out even though he was right next to him.

"What?"

"I'm having a really good time...with...you...oh and Taylor!"

"That's great, Caboose." Tucker's annoyance was clear in his voice, but Caboose just kept right on talking.

"Yeah, it's like we're real soldiers." I snorted when Caboose said that. Seriously, what goes on in that brain of his?

"Would you please go hide behind another rock?"

I moved again, going to meet up with the other two behind there rock. It was a tight fit, but we managed.

"Either of you two know what's going on?"

"No, but we've been out here for fuck ever!" Tucker complained. Caboose did something useful and took a look through his sniper rifle.

"A red and Tex are on top of the base!" Caboose said, lowering the rifle.

"Tex is on top of the base?"  
"Yes."

I frowned, something didn't seem right with this. I tried to remember how Tex got free. Church took over some people over there.

"What're you doing?" Tucker asked Caboose, breaking my thoughts.

"One of the Reds has Tex. I'm going to shoot him, and kill him, and free Tex. The Church will forgive me for killing him, and we will be friends."

My eyes widened as I remembered what happened next. Although Grif brough Sarge back to life, or out of recovery mode, whatever, _this_ was one of the points that was unnecessary pain. This I could stop. It had no real effect on the plot, other than humor. But now that this was real, I couldn't let Caboose do this.

"Oh come on. You don't actually believe any-"

"Hold your fire." I commanded. "Does it look like Tex is talking to the red?" I had to check.

"Yes." Caboose said.

"Talking to him? Why would she be talking to him?"

"Because Church is possessing his body. You shoot him, you'll shoot Church...again." I said.

"How can you be sure?"  
"I can't. You, on the other hand, can radio him and find out."

"Good idea. Wait hold on." Tucker seemed to zone out for a moment, but really he was listening to someone on the radio.

"Got it. Hey, are you really possessing that Red Sargent?... Cool. Over and out."

"Church?" I guessed.

"Yeah, he wants another distraction while Tex and him get away. We are supposed to meet back by the teleporter, and he is possessing that dude's body. Good thing Caboose didn't fire."

"Yes. Church would have been mad if I killed him twice." Caboose said.

"Come on. Let's run around a bit more than get to the teleporter." I said., getting up from my crouch and running back the way we came, darting between rocks. The other two followed after me. In not time, we were back at the teleporter thing.

Tex arrived a few seconds later, no Church in site.

"Alright, lets get back to base and clean this stuff off our armor." I said. None of us moved though. "No one knows how to use this thing to go back, do we." a 'no', 'nope', and 'what do I look like, a rocket scientist' were what I got in response. Sighing, I turned towards our base and started walking.

This has been one long day.


	5. A Slightly Pleasant Surprise Oh wait

**Hope you enjoy. This is the last chapter I have pre-written out, and College has started back up. I don't plan on stopping though, or being late with updates, but you all know how life can be.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own RVB**

* * *

The walk back to base was uneventful, mostly filled with complaints from the two boys on the team. That is, until Tex threatened bodily harm if they didn't stop complaining. That shut them up for a bit, but not long enough. By the time we were inside in the living room area, Tex was ready to beat the shit out of both of them, and I was prepared to help.

"Need some help taking that armor off, baby?" Tucker asked me, and although I couldn't see it, I was sure a smirk played at the corners of his mouth. He sauntered around the room, grabbing rags in the kitchen and throwing a few at Caboose and me without warning. I caught mine easily, while Caboose's fell to the floor before he had a chance to react. I glared at Tucker, and was about to just say "fuck it" and punch the shit out of him, when I caught sight of Tex standing against the wall, away from us. An idea sprung to mind, but would she go along with it?

"Sure. Tex can help me out in my room. Come on, Tex." I walked towards the bedrooms, swaying my hips as I went, just to mess with Tucker. Thankfully, Tex did follow behind. I led the way to my room and let us both in, shutting and locking the door behind us.

Honestly, I was a bit worried about Tex. I loved her character, and I knew there was a side to her that cared about the other freelancers, but with Omega in her head she was a threat. I just hoped I could warm up to her a bit, especially after threatening her when we first met.

"You don't really have to help clean my armor or anything, you've helped enough just by following along...Sorry about earlier too, by the way." As I talked, I threw my duffel bag that was still in the middle of my floor under my bed. I would have to look at it later and see what I had, but that was a job for another time.

"I might as well help, and no hard feelings about earlier. I understand the desire to protect your team."

"Glad to hear we're good."

"Us women have to stick together, and all that shit." I let out a short laugh at that and I bet if her helmet was off Tex would be smiling. She kept talking. "So Tucker seems a bit… well, like a creep, is the word that comes to mind."

"He is just over compensating and immature, but harmless… I bet he is jizzing his pants at the idea of us two in here without armor."

Tex snorted, and I laughed, relieved she was okay with the joke. My muscles slowly relaxed as I became more comfortable around Tex, but I still kept my guard up. Can't be too careful with Omega.

"I bet you five bucks he will be outside the door within three minutes trying to hear what's going on in here?" I told her.

"Deal. I think he won't be outside that door for at least six or seven minutes. He will clean his armor first." She said, and we shook hands.

I shifted and twisted, snapping pieces off of my armor, and placing them on the floor, starting with my helmet and working down my body. Thankfully, other fanfictions were right in assuming that a tight, black body suit is worn under the armor. I pushed the thought of _how_ I got into this skin tight suit out of my mind.

Tex sat down and grabbed one of the pieces that were rapidly falling to the floor. She got to work scrubbing off the soot, and with all my armor now scattered on the floor, I followed. Soon, two pieces of my armor were ready to go back on and sitting off towards our left. During this, we both were keeping one eye on the time, wanting to win the bet. After two minutes I heard a thump outside the door, followed by a soft curse. I smirked.

"Oh gosh Tex, you rub that armor so well." I used the sexest tone of voice I had while also making sure I was loud enough to be heard through the door, but not overly obvious. She tilted her head and I pointed to the door, a huge grin on my face that she could see since my helmet was off. I mouthed the word Tucker, and she seemed to get the hint.

"It's my pleasure. I just wish I could be rubbing something else for you."

"I _am_ a little tense. Maybe you could just get my shoulders." I paused and then moaned, as if she was giving me a back massage. "Yeah thats nice. Lower? lower? ...OH! Tex that's too low!"

"Don't like a good ass massage?" She asked. Both of us were trying so hard not to laugh and break our cover, and we managed it well. I moved closer to the door and I motioned for her to follow.  
"It just took me by surprise is all." I said. We both were standing close to the door. I smirked, holding up three fingers. Then two. Once I dropped my last finger both of our hands shot forward and hit the door with a loud BANG. A yelp came from the other side as I opened my door to find Tucker, helmet off, on the floor, armor clean in only a few places.

"Pay up." I said. Tex reached into a space on her armor and gave me the money. Tucker, meanwhile, was trying his best to explain.

"I thought there was something wrong with the door and-"

"I catch you spying on me like that again Tucker and I will shoot your dick off. Understood?" I told him.

"Yes."

"Anything else?" I asked when he just kept sitting on the floor staring at me. He shook his head and got up off the ground, leaving Tex and me behind. We went back in my room and as soon as the door was shut we burst out laughing.  
"That was great." She said.

"It was a team effort" I told her, holding up my hand for a high five, which she gave.

We finished quickly after that, just polishing the armor and talking about easy stuff. Both of us avoided topics, for obvious reasons, but it was fun. Once we finished I put all the loose random pieces back on and we went to see how the others were.

There was no one left in the base, so we went to check outside.

"I ah, man, uh, you know, this stuff does not come off easy?" Caboose said, Tucker and him standing just outside the base. Tuckers armor was clean but Cabooses was still black.

"Yeah, this was a lot easier when we were cleaning just my armor."

"Yeah, I know that, that's I think because you know, uh, YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING." Caboose yelled. Wow, he was pissed

"I'm sorry, what? It's kind of hard to hear you over the sound of your constant team-killing."

"I didn't shoot him!"

"You didn't shoot him the second time, which would have done nothing BECAUSE HE IS ALREADY DEAD, because Taylor stopped you. Otherwise, you would have had two kills under your belt, both of them TEAM KILLS...At least you would have been consistent."

"Ah, ah, aaahhhh ha ha ha ha ah yeah, ah yeah aha, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh... Don't make me mad." Caboose said that last part in a tone that almost made me think Omega had jumped into him early.

"I'm gonna help Caboose with the armor." I told Tex.

"I'm going to see if I can find Church."

"Good luck with that." Seriously, he was a ghost, he could hide from someone for as long as he wanted. Yet, something tells me he didn't really want to hide from Tex. Tex walked off and Tucker made to follow but I stopped him.

"Where do you think you're going Tucker?"

"Uh, to watch Tex and Church. I'm pretty sure It's going to end with Church getting his ass handed to him, and that is something I do not want to miss."

"Well, then you better scrub fast. The sooner the soot is off Cabooses armor the sooner you can go watch."

"Aw man, seriously?"

I tossed him a clean rag and a piece of Cabooses armor and the three of us set to work. We were all pros at this point at getting this stuff off, and we finished in a few minutes. Just in time too, because as Caboose was clipping the last piece of his armor on the yelling began.

"Come on, or we're gonna miss it." I said, running to the ledge. Jumping down could hurt, but it seems like this armor has some sort of shock absorbers or something. No time like the present to test it.

I hate to say it, but I closed my eyes as I jumped down, slightly afraid it would hurt more than people let on. I was pleasantly surprised to find that as I landed on my feet I was fine. Any high higher than that probably would hurt, but that was definitely worth the test. Caboose and Tucker followed, and the three of us went around the corner where the yelling was coming from. I stopped a bit farther back to watch, while Caboose and Tucker got closer than was necessary.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'm square with you." Tex said. Caboose and Tucker shifted their gaze to Church, waiting for his response.

"I saved you from a life of imprisonment. How the hell are you square with me?"

The two shifted back to Tex, the ball lobbed in her court, the two spectators eagerly awaiting the next serve in the verbal tennis match taking place right in front of them.

"Because I didn't kill you back at Sidewinder." Tex shouted at Church.

"You know, I don't really see how not killing somebody is the same thing as doing them a favor."

"Well, if you don't appreciate it, I could just kill you right now." Tex raised her gun and aimed, while every muscle in my body tensed.

"No, you can't! I'm already dead, bitch! I guess the joke's on you!"

Apparently this was Cabooses breaking point, and I couldn't blame him for it. "Stop it! Stop fighting. Can't you see that you're tearing us apart? WHAT ABOUT US?"

"What about you?" Tex asked.

"We helped you too. And what do we get? Nothing!" He told her.

" Well yeah, but…"

"Yeah, but nothin'. He's got a point." Church said.

"I did help them get the flag back."

"Yeah, but you were paid to do that. We rescued you as a favor. We could have just let you rot in the Red Army prison, it wouldn't have made any difference to us." Tucker said.

"Fine, I'll stay here as long as it takes to help you guys win this thing. As soon as I have, I'm outta here. What do you need me to do?"

"I have no idea. If you knew how to fix a tank, I would have you do that."

"...Okay."

"Wait, you-you know how to fix Sheila? ...I love you." Caboose said. Ignoring him, Tex got down to business.

"Where is the tank?" She asked. All of us turned and looked out towards the middle of the canyon, where Sheila lay overturned, since no one moved her after the airstrike. Well fuck.

"Alright. Lets just sneak over there, get her working, and drive her back here for now."

Everyone moved out, except me. Was there anything important going to happen out there? I couldn't remember what happens next. I racked my brain but I couldn't for the life of me remember what exactly happened when. Maybe I should make some data logs about what I remembered. There were a lot of time gaps between seasons and -

"Taylor! You coming?" Tucker yelled back to me.

Hesitating for only a second, I shouted a "yeah!" and jogged towards him.

"Where's Church?" I asked, looking around and noticing our resident AI was MIA.

 _So many acronyms._

"He is going to go spy on the Reds while we fix Sheila!" Caboose said.

"Quiet Caboose." Tucker said. "This is a stealth mission. We get in, do the job, and get out."

"Meow chika boop bump." Caboose said. Everyone, even Tex, stopped walking and looked at him.

"Were you trying to say Bow chika bow wow?" I asked him.

"Yes, that is what I said."

"Man, you can't use my catch phrase. There are laws against that, or some shit."

"You cannot own words...unless… you own a dictionary!" Caboose shouted. I looked over towards Tex, only to be met with an empty patch of ground. Looking around, I saw she was over looking at the tank already. At least someone here gets stuff done.

"Caboose, if you use my phrase again, I will kill you." Tucker said, just as Church phased into existence next to us.

"Okay, take it easy guys. When I was over at the red Base, I saw that they've already got their jeep fixed. So whatever you do, don't let 'em see us before we get Sheila back online."

"Okay, okay. Even if we get Sheila fixed, how are we going to turn her over? I mean it's not as if we could just lift-" Caboose cut himself off as we heard the groaning of metal. Everyone looked towards the Tank just in time to see Tex flip it right over. "Oh. She is a very strong lady."

"I'm the one that's the least visible, so I'm gonna head up here to higher ground. I'll keep an eye on the Red Base. If I see anything, I'll let you know.

"Great, I'll come with you!" Caboose told Church.

"That kinda defeats the purpose, Caboose."

"Okay. What if I'm really... really... quiet?" Caboose kept getting quieter and quieter with each word, but he still wasn't that quiet.

"Do you even understand what the term "visibility" means?" Church asked. Caboose in response just laughed and said "Good one" Like Church just told a funny joke. The urge to facepalm was never one I had really experienced until coming here, but it seemed like I now wanted to do so every five minutes.

I left them and went over to Tex, who seemed to know what she was doing.

"Hey, need anything?" I asked.

"Nah, I'm good. I'll get this tank up and running in no time." I heard steps behind me and turned to see Tucker.

"So Tex, I suppose if you're helping us, you're not as mean as I thought." Tucker said. Tex stopped what she was doing and turned to face Tucker.

"I wouldn't say I'm mean. I just get hired to do mean things." She replied.

"Yeah, but you like it."

"Well, I think it's important to enjoy what you do."

I laughed, but covered it up with a cough. The two just ignored me. Instead Tucker went on to talk.

"So let's say I payed you to kill Caboose. You would still do it, right? Even though you're supposed to be helping us?"

"Is this a hypothetical discussion, or should we start talking numbers?"

"yeah, I don't want to talk about this any more."

"Hey Tucker!" Church's voice came from above us nearby. Looking over, he was on the ledge, probably near where his body was still….oh shit his body.

"What?" Tucker called up to him, clearly not putting two and two together yet.

"What the hell is my body still doing up here?"

"That's part of being dead, body doesn't really move around much anymore. Maybe you haven't fully grasped the concept yet."

"Alright, well let me rephrase that then: Why in the hell haven't you buried my body yet?"

"Buried? With what? All we have are pistols and rifles. What do you want me to do, shoot you a grave?"

"Well then how about shipping me back home? You know, let the loved ones pay a little respect."

"Well Church, here's your girlfriend. Tex, as one of Church's loved ones, would you like to pay your respects?"

Instead of saying anything, Tex turned around and started working on the tank again. She had to know that he wasn't really dead, that he was an AI and that this wasn't her Church...and she wasn't his Alison. What a terrible thing to know, to keep all to themselves. What a terrible thing the Director did, to himself, to his wife, to his daughter.  
It just made me hate him more.

Speaking of him, was he the reason I was here? Could he send me home? Did I… did I want to go home? There wasn't much for me there, but the possibilities here are, well, endless. But how did I get here?

If the director brought me here, than he would have to know I wasn't about to let all those horrible things happen to the freelancers that were still alive, or to these simulation troopers. I would only bring down project freelancer faster and with more ease. Why would he want that? No one wanted that except…

Except the Chairmen.

"Hey, are you okay?" Tex asked me.

"Huh, yeah."

"That's the second time you've zoned out."

"Yeah, its been a long d"ay."

"I know the feeling." Tex said.

"I'm sorry about Church's death… I mean he is a ghost, so you can still talk to him and stuff, but I can't imagine it being the same."

"No, it isn't the same." Tex said, double meaning behind her words evident, but I wasn't supposed to know what it meant.

Her and Church were not Allison and Leonard. She had that knowledge. They took it from Church. Gave him fake memories, and stuck him in this stupid canyon. Not to mention the things they did to him before.

"Would you mind holding this right here?" Tex asked me, and I reached out and grabbed the metel piece. I helped by randomly holding pieces in place to be fixed for the next few minutes before both of us heard shouting from above.

"HEY LOOK AT THIS!" Caboose said. Looking up and over, the were on the cliff, probably near Church's body. Caboose was looking towards Red Base at something. "They have a girl. A GIRL!... A girl, a girl! Look! Pink armor!"

"Aw man, how come they get a girl." Tucker said. I looked at Tex and she seemed as confused and pissed as me.

"Uh, you guys realize that we are chicks, right? And that we're standin' right here?" Tex called up to them.

"Yeah, Tex, but when we say a girl, we mean a girl-girl."

"And what the hell does that mean?" We both asked at the same time. Caboose and Tucker backed up, far enough so that we could no longer see them on the cliff, both yelling "Nothing!" as they disappeared.

"Ass holes." Tex said.

"Yeah, tell me about it." We moved back to finish fixing the tank when Caboose appeared at the ledge again.

"Hey...! Tex! Uh... Did you hear Church's secret plan to tell the Reds that you were fixing the tank?"

Tex stared at him for a few seconds before looking back towards the tank and setting back to work. Caboose at this point had backed away again.

"Why would he warn the Reds? That makes no sense."

"Probably because he thinks you're going to kill all the Reds once it's back online." I told her.

"So? Thats the point of me staying. I destroy the reds, then we're square."

"And once that's settled you'll leave."

"And?"

"Church isn't ready to let you go yet." I said. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized just how true my words were. There will come a day when Church lets go, but it's not now. No, he will fight to hell and back for her. And then let her go. Thats the difference between Church and the director.

He lets her go.

"He should." Tex practically yelled, punched the tank, leaving a sizable dent. "He should just let me go."

I didn't say anything. What could I say? I wasn't supposed to know what I know, but I do. And if I let something slip and Tex finds out what I know she will torture me to find out how, and then kill me because my story is so unbelievable.

But I wish I could comfort her. Tell her Church lets go one day. Tell her it all works out, she is set free. She can rest in peace.

Instead I keep my mouth shut as Tex gets back to work. As she fixes the dent, and other aspects of the Tank while I offer my assistance when I can.

"Thank you for activating the M808V Main Battle Tank" Sheila's voice chimed as she came online not long after the little outburst.

"Alright. I'm going to drive over there and get the job done. You stay here with the other two."

"Kick ass, Tex." I told her, foregoing the usual motto of 'good luck'. She didn't need it.

"Oh, I will." She said, jumping in the tank and taking off. I walked up to the top of the cliff, feeling pretty damn proud of myself. I just helped Tex fix a tank. How bad ass was that? I was practically skipping in this armor by the time I got up to the area where the boys were waiting.

"Hey Caboose, hey Tucker."

"Did you know Caboose's name was O'Mally?" Tucker asked me. I froze, my breath and good feeling leaving my body in one _woosh_.

"O'Mally?" I managed to choke out his name. But for as much as the AI scared me, the fact that he jumped ship scared me more.

"That's what he is saying. Hey, wheres Tex?"

My body felt like it was being weighed down with a thousand pounds as I turned and looked towards the other side of the canyon. Did she know? Probably not, she had to keep Omega shut down, out of her mind, and so he could easily just leave without her knowing.

Omega only leaves Tex in one situation. When she is at more risk than he feels comfortable with. When she is going to be killed.

"Red Base." I whispered.

 _Maybe she did need that good luck._


	6. Last One Out, Get The Bodies

**aA/N - Okay, here it is, the end of season 1.**

 **I'm not going to make different stories for different seasons, you don't have to worry about that. This will just be one story, probably.**

 **Disclaimer** **: I don't own Red Vs. Blue**

* * *

 _Shit. Shit shit shit._

Tex was on her way to be killed, and there was nothing I could do about it. I mean, even if there was, I couldn't. She needed to die too, right? So what, I just would sit her and watch? Man, this sucked. I thought this would be fun, but this is turning out to be hell.

While I was mentally freaking out about my fuck ups, Caboose was being productive and looking through the sniper rifle to see what Tex was up to. The explosions echoing throughout the canyon should have been enough of a hint, but I guess its good to be sure.

"Okay, I'm getting really sick of asking people what's going on through that sniper rifle." Tucker said.

"Church is getting mad at us." Caboose filled Tucker and me in.

"Ohhhhh. Well that's a nice change of pace."

"Now is not the time for sarcasm Tucker. What else do you see?" I asked.

"Uh, The tank is firing at the reds."

"Caboose, you should take notes. Tex is showing you how to not team kill." Tucker said.

"Taylor said no more sarcasm."

"I was actually being serious about that one, Caboose."

"Focus. We need a plan of action." I tried to get us back on track away from just standing around and talking. Seriously, how did anything get done around here?

"I've got a plan to get some action. Bow chika bow wow."

I grabbed Tucker's arm, spun him around and shoved him face first into the canyon wall. I didn't even really think about it, I just did it.

"OW! Dude, that fucking hurts!"

"We are sending our best chance at winning into a what, five on one fight? She is good, but not that good. Not right now. We need to focus, and stop messing around before someone else gets killed."

"Tex has a tank. Together, they are easily like twenty men." Tucker said. I almost pressed harder, which would probably result in his shoulder dislocating, when I forced myself to stop. I practically scream, removing myself from Tucker, and began pacing. These two clearly didn't get it. Tex was screwed, she was going to die. Forget storyline, I would not let Tex die too.

What could I do? I could run out there and pull her from the tank before-

"Hey, bitch! Remember me!? I saved something for ya!" A voice echoed throughout the canyon. Okay new plan. My eyes searched the air for the grenade being lobbed at Tex, finding it at its peak. I pulled my gun from my hip, about to aim and fire, but there was no way this thing would hit it. I needed the sniper rifle that was in Cabooses hands.

"Man, that girl's got a really good arm." Tucker said to my left, just as the grenade landed inside the cab of the Tank. The cab where Tex was.

" Hell yeah! Three points, you dirty whore!" Donuts voice rang out again. I almost wanted to shoot him, but it wouldn't do any good. I holstered my gun. I had failed. Again.

 _Flashback_

" _He is dead because of you! You should have saved him, you should never had gone on that mission. You're a failure, why are you even here. " The women in black kept shouting, yelling insults at me or the army, trying to break the hold of the tuxedo clad family member restraining her. Honestly, I would have felt better if they just let her go and punch me. After what felt like hours of her vocalizing what I had already believed, she collapsed into the arms of her restrainer, just saying "He's dead, He's dead, He's dead."_

" _I'm sorry." I desperately spoke, trying to get them to understand how much I meant those words, how much I wish I could have saved the men in my unit, how much I wish I stood up and not let them engage, but everyone was focused on the hysterical women. Almost everyone. Those who weren't were sending me dirty looks._

" _Why even come?"_

" _Just want to make yourself feel better?"_

" _You need to leave."_

 _None of those things were said out loud, but their eyes said that and more. I turned away, weaving between the graves, stumbling as I tried to see past my tears. I made my way back to my car, and just sat there._

 _I failed my team._

 _End Flashback_

"Crap. Church is gonna be pissed, and now he's got a body to kick our ass. Come on, Caboose, let's get back to base."

"I told you, my name isn't Caboose..My name... is...O'Malley...!" Caboose replied to Tucker, his voice changing half way through to a tone that gave me goosebumps. Okay, so I had to live with psycho Caboose for three months. Wait, no, this was good. I had three months to come up with a plan that wouldn't leave Caboose brain damaged. Well, any more than he possibly already was.

"Yeah, Okay, whatever dude. You coming, Taylor?" Tucker said, and took off towards the base.

Step by step I followed after, not paying much attention to where I was going so much as what I would do when I got there. There was something important that took priority over everything. I wonder where extra sheets are kept in the base. Then I would need two poles. Maybe a broom? A mop? Would our base even have those?

"Taylor!" Tucker yelled. I looked around but neither him or Caboose were there, I turned and saw they had both stopped a few feet back.

"Huh?"

"I asked if you wanted dinner when we got back. I'm making pasta."

"You're making pasta?"

"That's what I just said."

"Huh. Yeah, sure." I said, continuing to walk the last few feet towards the base. I navigated the hallways and the trap door with ease, and once inside our actual base, I looked around. Maybe to the left this time? Going through that door, I ended up in a hall with two doors. The first was a closet, with cleaning supplies inside, and a shelf towards the top with cloth. I took a broom and a mop, and pulled down one of the folded pieces from the shelf to see it was a bed sheet. Taking a closer look at what I grabbed, I saw there were no chips in the handles, no muck on the bottoms of either cleaning utensil, but each had a nice layer of dust covering them. Unfolding the sheets, I saw that there were very clear creases where the folds were.

I gathered my things and turned to the other door. Another time I would look at it, but there were more important things right now.

I went back to the main common area and caught sight of two armor-less men. The one was in the kitchen, his back to me. He wasn't overly muscular, but fit. He had changed out of his black, tight fit suit everyone wore under the armor and into a teal t-shirt and khakis. He seemed to move with confidence through the kitchen, walking towards a cupboard and opening it, reaching in and immediately grabbing the spice container he wanted.

 _Nice ass_

I shook my head and kept walking, right past the blonde man, well, boy, fiddling with a Rubik's Cube on the couch. He too had changed, now wearing a blue shirt and plaid gray shorts. He was definitely lanky, even sitting down you could tell that. I wonder how he has so much strength.

"Come on...Come on…" Caboose's face was screwed up, turning the cube more and more, probably only making it worse in his attempt to solve the puzzle.

"Hey, dinner will be done in a bit. Wait, where are you going with that?" Tucker called from behind me, reminding me I had a job, I couldn't just hang out with these two quite yet.

"Out."

I walked up the ladder and out of the base, not a small feet carrying the supplies, and went straight towards the middle of the canyon. I could hear someone crying, the sound getting louder as I got closer to the tank. I coughed, trying to alert Church to my presence so he could have a moment to get a hold of himself. As I walked around the tank, my heart broke in two.

Church had his head down, just staring at Tex, cradling her clearly broken body. Her armor was dented and marked up, clearly she had been in battle. Too bad she had no chance of fighting back. Her leg was twisted at an odd angle, and looking closer you could see spots where dark red was dripping out of the cracks in the suit. I breathed, focusing on that while averting my eyes from her body. Tex was on her way to being my friend. I had gotten her killed.

I dropped my stuff on the ground, and started tying the different ends of the sheet to different points on the broom and mop. Church didn't say a word, didn't move. He just kept staring at Tex, whispering softly words I couldn't make out.

When I finished, I moved closer towards the two.  
"Church. I'm going to move her body, closer to base."

"Si. bueno"

Right. He was in Lopez's body, so he was speaking Spanish. I wonder how we fix that.

"I'm sorry, Church."

"Yo también"

He stood up, and helped me move her on the sheet. He was so gentle, he put her arms across her chest, straightened out her body to the best of his abilities. Then we each grabbed an end and carried her towards our base.

We set her down outside the entrance, and lifted her off the stretcher. Then, I went and walked towards the cliffs.

"¿Adónde vas?"

"I don't know what that means." I called back to Church. I felt him grab my arm and spin me around to look at him.

"¿Adónde vas?" He repeated.

"Just because you say something slower doesn't mean I'll understand it. That isn't how another language works." I tried to pull away but his grip tightened. "Let me go, Church."

"¿dónde?"

"Uh donde I recognize that… It means where? Oh! Where am I going?"

"Si."

"To get your body."

"¿Por tí mismo? Que loco."

"I think you just called me crazy. Not cool, man."

"¿Por Qué?"

"Why?" Church nodded his head at my statement. "Because it's something I have to do. For you. I couldn't save you, I couldn't save Tex. This is literally the least I can do. Stay here, bury your girlfriend, eat dinner, do whatever. I'll be back soon."

I think I heard him say something about girls being crazy, or maybe just me, but I could have gotten that translation wrong. I didn't take Spanish in high school, I took French, but some words are similar enough that you can get the gist of what people are saying. Plus, movies and TV actually do help. They can teach you quite a few foreign words.

Anyways, I was on a mission, and I wasn't going to stop because someone called me crazy. Church's death, Tex's death, all the death to come. It was my fault. I had set them on this path, and there was no changing it. Sure, there would be time in between, I think its three months until the start of the next bit, and I had a plan of how to use that time, but everyone else death is my fault. South, North Maine, York…

York. There's a person I _could_ save. I would do anything to save him, including giving mine. If I did anything while here, anything to make up for what I have done, the main thing was saving York.

I reached Church's body and moved it onto the stretcher. It felt like days had gone by, not hours, since he died.. It was an odd feeling, but one I had experienced before. This whole day was terrible. How did something start off so great and end so badly.

The bad part about coming now was that rigor mortis was setting in pretty good now. An hour later and I probably wouldn't have been able to move him by myself at all. Church's body hadn't had much time to decay and get gross at least, just very stiff. I managed to move Church's body onto the stretcher in a way I thought he wouldn't fall off.

I couldn't lift Church's body entirely by myself, so I set him up as best as possible and dragged him. Yeah, dragged him. It was the most dignified for him, and it wasn't the easiest thing for me. I mean, man, he was heavy. Was that all from the armor? Or was Church a bit on the heavy side? Did Church even have a body in this suit? I guess he would if rigor was there...maybe it was just the armor locked up?

So many questions, so little answers. There was no way I was taking his helmet off. It was one question I was okay with never finding the answer to. Instead, I just kept going and moved a bit closer to base. A few minutes later I heard the crunching of feet on dirt approaching.

"Hey, need help?" A familiar voice

"Tucker, what are you doing out here?" My voice labored as I kept tugging Church's body, and not in one fluid motion either. My arms burned and it was getting harder and harder to keep walking.

"Church came in yelling in Spanish, so first I had to figure out how to fix that. Once I finally did, he told me to come help you."

"I don't need any help." I said, giving another tug. "I'm doing just fine."

"Then I'll just keep you company for a bit. Brag about the amazing dinner I made, cause man, one bite of the spaghetti and your whole world will be rocked. I mean, I can think of some other ways to rock your world too, Bow chika bow wow."

I let out a short laugh, and Tucker seemed to relax a bit. I didn't even realize he was tense, or that I was tense.

"I'm excited to try the spaghetti, Tucker." I told him, and honestly I was. "I didn't peg you for a cooking type."

"My mama taught me how growing up. It was how we bonded, ya know? My brother always said cooking was for pussys, but what does he know?"

"Personally, I think men cooking is sexy." I said, and watched as Tucker stumbled a bit. "You good?"

"Yeah, must of hit a rock or something." Tucker mumbled, regaining his composure. "Are you sure you don't want any help?"

I was about to say no, but I took a closer look at Tucker. This day was hard for him too, he lost a friend. He may not show it, but he was upset. I saw how he reacted when his friend got blown up by the tank.

"Yeah, okay. I would like that."

"Man, Church is a heavy mother fucker. What does he weigh, like two, two fifty? And you've been dragging his sorry ass across this canyon?"

I snorted. "Yeah, I was going to ask him about that when I got back to base, but I remembered the whole Spanish thing. Which I guess isn't a problem now." Tucker didn't reply to me for a minute, but when he did I was confused.

"It's weird, right?"

"The Spanish?"

"No, what? No, the ghost thing."

"Oh." I didn't know what else to say, I hadn't really thought about how weird it must be, because I knew the why. For as many questions as I had, Tucker had more.

"Yeah."

"No, yeah, its weird. But, ya know, maybe he just didn't want to go yet. Unfinished business and all that jazz." I tired to be nonchalant. I don't think it was working.

"Yeah, but now Tex is dead. And I mean, it's nice still having him around, I thought I had lost my friend today. But, what is keeping him here?" Tucker asked.

"I don't know." I lied.

"You seem pretty cool about this. Like, for a first day, this was pretty bad."

"Its a bad day for you, too."

"Yeah, but this is like, the worst first day of work evvveerr." I sensed Tucker was trying to lighten the mood, probably getting a bit uncomfortable with the whole showing emotions.

"Well, its not all bad. I hear I got some pretty good spaghetti waiting for me back at base. And really, how bad can a day be if you got a home cooked meal waiting for you?"

"The best home cooked meal."

"Yeah, see? Today isn't so bad… Do we have any alcohol?"

"Oh yeah, we have plenty." Tucker said.

It was now I realized that we were really close to the base. Without saying, we moved towards the left side, where Tex's body was laying on the ground. We gently set Church down next to her, moving his body off the stretcher, and Tucker gathered it up to bring inside.

I frowned, not liking the idea of just leaving them outside for the night, but not seeing much choice. No way were we moving them inside. It was just too...creepy. Yet, it felt wrong to just leave them out here. I kept staring, trying to figure something out, when Tucker spoke next to me.

"Here."

He was handing me something. Most specifically, the sheet from the makeshift stretcher. I flung out the gathered material, letting it billow out over Tex, and dropping my side down over Church. That was better, at least.

"Come on." I said, and made my way to the underground bunker that was the base. That was my new home, at least for the next few months.

"We got any vodka?"

"Hell yeah, I said we got alcohol, and what kind of place has alcohol but not vodka? That shit's a staple." Tucker said, making me laugh as I climbed down the ladder. Jumping off, I turned and saw ghost Church, instantly killing my almost good mood.

"Thanks, for uh...ya know." He said awkwardly, rubbing his hand behind his head.

"Yeah. I was…"I hesitated, not sure if I should bring this up so soon, but figuring it needed to be said. "I was thinking we could do a proper burial tomorrow, for both of you."

"Yep that, uh, that sounds good. I'm just gonna…." He faded away, not really saying where he was going. I think he needed to be alone though.

I figured it was probably best if I changed out of the armor before eating, so I headed to the the rooms, Tucker having the same idea and following behind me, his armor making his footsteps loud and clunky.

"Want me to help you outta that armor, baby?"

"Sure." I opened my door to my room as I said it, turning to see him frozen halfway in his own door.

"Seriously?" I assumed his voice would have been filled with hope. Instead, it sounded a bit like he was scared.

"Nope." I laughed as I shut, and locked, my door behind me. Turning, I looked all around the room again. As far as battle sleeping arrangements go, this place was by far the nicest place I had ever been.

I stripped off pieces of my armor, careful to place it in a neat line along the back wall as I did, so that the pieces would not be mixed up tomorrow. Helmet on the left, the shoulder and arm pieces, torso, and so on until my feet pads were on the right.

Well now what? I couldn't walk around in this skin tight thing all night. And did I have any more of these, because that would be pretty gross to wear for a while, and I sure as hell didn't want to do laundry every night.

I pulled open the drawers of the dresser, and found some basic things. white Socks, black mens underwear, and blue t-shirts in different drawers. In the closet, there were multiple full body black suits hanging on the rack, nine in total. Thank God.

I looked towards the bed and saw my duffle, and figured maybe something was in there that I could wear. I wasn't opposed to wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt, but I don't want to encourage Tucker. At least, not _that_ much.

"Hell yes." I exclaimed as I opened my large duffel and found clothing from home. I took everything out and separated it into piles on the bed. Three pairs of jeans, five pairs of shorts in various grays and blacks, about three dozen pairs of underwear and five black bras, a few black camis, and some green camo t-shirts littered my bed. A few random pairs of workout shorts and tank tops were there too. Add that to my hair brush, my favorite gun, and deodorant, and I would say they packed up my shit pretty well. Whoever _they_ were.

I quickly took my rolled clothes and put them in empty space in the dresser, except a pair of black shorts, and a green t-shirt.. Everything just barely fit. I didn't see a spot for dirty clothes, so I left the black body suit on the floor near my bed to deal with later, threw on the clothes, and went to eat.

Tucker and Caboose were both sitting on the couch, one at either end, eating like they had not had a bite of food in days. A quick look towards the TV let me see that they were watching some game that seemed like soccer, or rugby maybe.

"Here," Tucker said, mouth full of food that he struggled to swallow. He half stood, not really taking his eyes off the TV, while grabbing a third plate that was sitting on the coffee table. "Made you a plate."

"Thanks."

I took grabbed it and decided to take the seat in the middle, making sure to look at the screen and check for a lull in the action before I actually moved. Even then, I made sure to move quickly past Tucker as I sat. Years of walking in front on the TV while my dad and uncles watched football games and getting yelled at left me with the knowledge that you don't interrupt, block, or hinder in any other way, any sport event on TV. Commercials and between plays was the only safe time to move.

Taking a bit of Spaghetti, I realized that Tucker is a good cook. Like, he should open a restaurant good. I think I might of actually moaned as the flavor hit my taste buds.

"I got something else that can make you moan. Bow chika bow wow." Tucker said next to me, not even taking his eyes of the screen to make his innuendo.

"Shut up and let me enjoy this culinary masterpiece in peace." I said.

"That's no way to talk to the chef who- oh go go go! YES!" Tucker practically leaped out of his chair. My head whipped to the TV, right before a huge explosion went off in the goal of the arena.

"Holy shit." I exclaimed. Was there some sort of terrorist attack at the match?

"That was a good goal." Caboose calmly said next to me. I looked at him, at a loss for words. Looking at Tucker, he was equally as calm, if not amused. Looking back towards the TV, it seemed like they were gearing up for the next round or period or down, whatever they hell this sport called it. Like explosions like that happened all the time.

"Never seen grifball before?" Tucker joyfully asked next to me, relaxing back into his seat and eating more pasta. I sat back in my seat too, trying to get a hold of my galloping heartbeat.

"That shits real?" I asked, not really thinking. Didn't they mention it in Red vs Blue once? Maybe Twice?

"Of course its real, and the best sport ever." Tucker went on to explain the game, Caboose adding in his own comments that weren't unhelpful, both pausing only when something good seemed about to happen. I listened, enjoy the moment. So not everything worked out today, not even close.

But I wouldn't call today bad. Not right now, at least.

 _Yeah, I could get used to this._


	7. Motion To Withdrawl

**Hey everyone!**

 **First things first, I have some questions I need to answer from you guys.**

 **First of all, I want everyone to know that I intend to update this every Monday, and so far have been doing a good job with actually doing that.**

 **Second, I have Tucker/OC listed for this story, and it is in the summery. I started this story wanting them to end up together, but then I had some ideas about having her with Washington instead. I think I created a solution that I like, but I'm not going to share just yet. But so you can all not worry too much about it, know that this story that you are reading right now is going to be a TUCKER/OC story.**

 **IT IS A TUCKER/OC STORY EVENTUALLY. **

**Finally, a disclaimer: I don't own Red Vs. Blue**

* * *

Something was loud. Too loud for this early in the morning. I rolled over and used my pillow to cover my ears, grumbling about stupid brass instruments as I curled up.

"I'm not in the army any more, shut off the trumpet." I yelled when my plan to black out the noise didn't work as well as I hoped. The sound continued, only to be broken up by another voice outside my door yelling.

"Who the fuck set the alarm?" The voice yelled, setting my body on high alert. What was someone, a male specifically, doing in my house?

I grabbed my gun and moved off my bed, pointing it at the door in one fluid motion. Only, my door wasn't where it was supposed to be. Disorientated and confused, I turned, and found it to the right of me, not the left back corner.

Oh.

I dropped my weapon to my side, and let my body fall on the bed, the air in my lungs coming out in a large _puff_. Putting the gun next to me, I buried my face in my hands.

It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a -

There was a loud knocking at my door. Tucker called out from the other side.

"Did you set the alarm, Taylor? Because that is so not cool. See, we have a system here which is called get up whenever we want, not at six."

I went over and opened my door, the trumpet still was playing reveille over and over from a speaker somewhere in my room. Did I have a button to shut it off? Probably not, since clearly Tucker couldn't shut it off from his room.

"I didn't do it."

"If you didn't do it, and Caboose didn't do it…"

"Church." We both said at the same time.

"Rise and shine princesses. I died for this army, I deserve an actual, funeral. Ceremonial bullshit and all." Church's voice said from behind me. I turned, and saw his ghost in my room.

"Why are you in my room?"

"Uh, ya know, It's a bit tricky sometimes to get the spot exactly right where I appear…"

"If you appear in my room again without being invited in, ghost or not, I'll find someway to kill you. And you won't be coming back. Better yet, I'll just destroy that nice new body you got. ...Where is your new body anyway?" I realize he hadn't been in it last night when he awkwardly thanked me, and obviously he wasn't in it right now.

"Oh, yeah, Lopez is fixing my radio. I wanted it to get a wider range, and he seems pretty good at that stuff."

"The more times you let go and try to posses him, the easier it will be for him to fight it. If you want to keep that body, you need to stay in it. Now out,"

"What?"

"My room. Out." I said, crossing my arms and moving to the side, a clear indication to move out the door.

"Right." He said, quickly moving out in the hall next to Tucker. Smart move on Church's part.

"And turn off that alarm, everyone's up. We will all get dressed and head out, okay Church?" I told him.

"Yep!' He said, disappearing into the air, the alarm fading as he did.

"You better be going to your body!" I shouted to the air left behind him, not really knowing if he heard. I knew it was unfair to Lopez to be possessed, but it was important he keeps this body right now. We could deal with an angry Lopez later.

"What, he gets me up this early to dig his grave, and he disappears so he doesn't have to help?" Tucker complained.

"Tucker." I raise one eyebrow at him. "I think he deserves a proper funeral, and to not have to dig his own grave."

"I guess." He said, and it wasn't until this second I took in _what_ Tucker was wearing, or should I say what he wasn't wearing. Boxers hung from his hips, a bit lower than strictly necessary, and that was it.

I always thought Tucker would be pretty out of shape, but looking at his abs that was not the case. Everything on his build seemed to be toned, but not overly so. It was like he worked out a bit but not to the point of crazy. His arms, his chest, his legs, all nice and firm. Probably his ass too. Did he secretly work out or something? Was it having to wear that armor all the time?

"Enjoying the view?" Tucker asked, breaking me from my thoughts. "Because I sure like what I'm seeing."

I had only wore a black cami and super short bed shorts to bed. Of course, I never planned on letting Tucker, or any one of the guys, see me in this. Now two out of three of them has, and it's only been on night. Great. The only way I would be happy with this situation is if I could make him flustered again. As casually as I could, I leaned against my door frame.

"Just curious. I pegged you as a sleep naked type of guy, so did you put those one before you ran out of your room?"

"Disappointed?"

"Not with this view." I said, my eyes roaming over his body once more. Tucker seemed at a loss for words, his face covered with a nice blush. I laughed, grabbing and shutting my door practically in his face.

"Go get your armor on!" I yelled.

"Yeah, whatever." He called out, his voice retreating into the distance, hopefully to go to his room and do what I said and not go back to sleep.

First things first, I needed a shower. Walking over to the bathroom, I took off my cami and folded it, setting it on the counter next to the sink. My shorts followed. It took a moment to figure out how to get the shower to work. Finally, hot water was coming out of the shower head and I stepped in.

Five minutes later I was standing in front of my armor with my black undersuit on, the pieces of armor all laid out in a line along the back wall. I snapped the pieces in place starting at my feet and ending with my helmet.

Walking into the kitchen I found Church, in Lopez's body, just waiting.

"We should really paint the armor." I commented.

"Hey, that's not a bad idea. You, uh, you want to do that? Like, some time today, maybe?"

"Yeah, not really." I replied, grabbing an apple from the fridge. I removed my helmet, taking a bite.

"Yeah, I figured. I'll get Caboose to do it. Speaking of, where is he?"

"Hi Taylor! Hi new guy!"

"Caboose, it's me."

"Oh, hi you!" Caboose said, then attempted to whisper to me, "I don't think the new guy knows who he is."

"Church, Caboose. I'm Church, just with different armor."

"Ohhhhhh. Why didn't you say so?"

"I did say- ya know what? Never mind."

"Good plan. Caboose, want some cereal before we go out?" I asked. I'm sure we had to have some around here some place.

"Yes please!" Caboose said, sitting down at the small table we had. I grabbed a bowl and looked in the cupboards, only seeing one type of cereal, cheerios. Not the worst, but not the best in my opinion. I shook some out into the bowl, then added some milk I got from the fridge. I topped it off with a spoon and set it in front of Caboose.

"Thank you Taylor!"

"Your welcome." I said on instinct. "Eat fast, we have a busy day ahead."

"Okay!" Caboose took off his helmet and practically inhaled the bowl.

"Can I get a bowl too, Miss Taylor?" Tucker asked from the doorway of the kitchen, his helmet held under his arms, allowing me to see the smirk on his face.

"Get yourself whatever you want, Tucker." I told him, grabbing myself an apple.

"Lame." He walked forward and grabbed himself a bowl, cereal, and milk. Before it was even all in the bowl Caboose made everyone jump when he suddenly yelled "DONE!"

"Clean up and go outside. We need to start digging." I told him.

"Okay!" Caboose said, placing his helmet on before washing his bowl and spoon quickly and then heading outside.

"Tucker, you done?"

"Ymehah" A jumbled word came out of Tucker's mouth as he attempted to talk around his last bite of food. He put his bowl in the sink and put on his helmet.

"Tucker, can I get a piggy back ride out?" Church asked.

"I guess?" Tucker barely finished talking before Church jumped up, wrapping himself around Tucker. For the most part, Tucker held up pretty well, for all of three seconds. before collapsing onto the floor.

"Dude, I thought your dead body was heavy, but that is nothing compared to this."

"Hey, it's not my fault you can only lift a total of five pounds."

"Guys. Lets just go." I told them. Agreeing, sort of, the both got up and followed me outside. Caboose was waiting there with some shovels. Tucker and I grabbed one and the three of us set to work digging Church's grave, which he dug one from Tex. After about an hour of digging, Tucker and Caboose took a break. I went over to help Church, since he was falling behind now.

Eventually, it had been four hours since we started, and Church and Tex lay in two graves at our feet, filled in and everything. Caboose had even made two crosses out of wood, I have no idea where he got the wood either, but I didn't bother to question it.

"Um... Maybe somebody should say something." Church hinted as we all just stood and looked down into them.

"Okay, go ahead." Tucker told him

"Not me, jackass. I'm not gonna eulogize myself."

"What? Why not, I eulogize myself all the time. Wait... I think I don't know what the word eulogize means."

Before I could open my mouth to comment, Caboose started his big speech. Ya, there was no way was I interrupting this.

"Wait, I know how to do this- Dearly beloved-"

"No, shut him up, seriously. Shut him up." Church asked, but was ignored by us. Tucker seemed to want to hear this just as much as I did.

"We are gathered here, today, to witness, the joining together of Tex, and Church, in eternalness together, smuh- speak now! Or forever, rest in peace! With liberty, and justice, for all. The end."

"Man this funeral is laaaame. If you need me, I'll -" I cut Tucker off before he could leave.

"Church, we didn't know each other for very long before your accident." I was a bit nervous, not really sure how he would take what I had to say, but I continued anyway since he didn't protest. "Even though you're here as a ghost, you still died for this army, and I take partial responsibility for it. I am, was? am? yeah, I am a member of your team, and I let you down. I didn't have your six. I didn't have Tex's either. So I want to say sorry, to both of you. Sorry I failed as your teammate. Sorry you both died...Sorry this funeral sucks."

No one spoke once I stopped. We all just stood with the silence around us. But someone had to break the moment, and thankfully that wasn't me.

"Thanks, Taylor." Church's voice was heavy. He coughed, clearly uncomfortable with showing emotions, and like most guys when uncomfortable, he made a joke. "Hey Tucker, can I have a piggy-back ride back to base?"

"No, nonono, I fell for that shit last time, I'm not doing that. That metal suit is like eight thousand pounds."

"Come on, one more piggy-back ride isn't gonna kill ya. I'm in mourning here. I've been through so much. At least help me paint my body blue."

 **OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

Weeks and weeks went by in an uneventful blur. The base fell into an easy routine. I would wake up around five, go for a run around the canyon, not bothering to wear armor. In any other base, at any other time, I would have said this was a stupid and poor decision. But, taking into account Griff's sleeping schedule, their poor aim, and the fact that Caboose was still asleep and thus unable to team kill me, I took my chances and ran without my armor. Still, I didn't get too close to red base, I wasn't suicidal.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, about a month back I was late getting up. Late by my standards, I was still very early if I went by my teammates schedule. So I left a half hour late for my run.

 _Flash back_  
 _So, I will just cut back at the shooting practice today. That won't be too bad. I mean I could-_

BAM

My thoughts broke off as I rounded the on the cliff I was running on, like I did everyday, at pretty much the halfway point of my run. Only this day I had his something, or something hit me. Either way my shoulder collided with someone, and I went down. Luckily, I managed to miss going off the edge of the cliff. Still, my hip hit hard when I fell, and I scraped up the palms of my hand. Add that to my shoulder and it's safe to say I was pissed.

"Oh my gosh, I am sooo sorry. Here." A hand was put in front of my face. I looked up at the person and saw a lanky, sandy hair colored man. He wore a pink shirt and extremely short white running shorts. He looked pretty worried too, maybe concerned that he hurt me?

"Thanks." I said, grabbing his hand and letting him help me up. "I'm Taylor." I said, already used to just being referred to by my last name.

"Donut. I'm glad you're okay. You could have fallen off the cliff or something! What are you doing all the way out in this canyon anyway?"

"I run every morning, only today I got out a half hour late."

"I've never seen you here before."

"Sure you have. I uh, well, I'm on blue team." I said, a bit awkward that I had to inform my enemy that I was, in fact, the enemy.

"Waiiiiittt, are you the girl that threw that bomb at me?" Donut took a few steps back, clearly not trusting me anymore.

"No! No uh, you killed her with that grenade you threw about uh, two months ago? Yeah, I'm the one in the dark blue."

"Ohhhhhh really? I love that color, but don't tell Sarge I said that." Donut moved closer again, and clearly chose to skip over the part about killing my teammate. As much as I wanted to, I actually couldn't blame him for her death, not really. Because I knew it would happen but couldn't, didn't, stop it, and the only reason they were set on the path of it happening was me. It ate at me, it added fuel to my already terrible nightmares, but I had to accept that it was all my fault.

"Thanks, I really like the lightish red shade you wear." I smiled at him as sincerely as I could, just to make him feel a bit more at ease. I had a soft spot for Donut while watching the show, and actually meeting him like this was just enforcing what was lost after I had watched him kill Tex. He was harmless, mostly, unless you told him to throw a grenade, but that just made him one of the more useful guys here. So if he wanted to say his armor was lightish red, that's what I would call it.

"Thanks! The other guys say its pink, but how can they not see that its just Lightish red?"

"Pink? No, your armor is definitly lightish red."

Donut seemed to be thinking about something pretty hard, so I stayed quiet until his face lit up into a smile.

"Hey, maybe if I go out fifteen minutes early, and you go out fifteen minutes later tomorrow, we could meet here again and finish our run together?" He told me. Ah, he was figuring out a way to see me again.

"Sure. We can do that. I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Heck yeah! See you tomorrow!" Donut took off the way I had come, and I took off in the other direction. Only, my hip was really killing me so I didn't make it very far. I ended up taking a shortcut back to base, feeling better about waking up late.

 _End Flashback_

So that's how I ended up adding Donut into my daily run routine, which was actually nice. We would take about random things everyday, I would actually consider him to be a friend at this point. The only bad part was if the teams ever started firing at each other. I mean, no one ever hit anything or anyone they were aiming for anyways, but I took extra care not to hit Donut. If I had to aim at anyone over there, I mostly aimed above Griffs head. Now, I had nothing against Griff, but I felt a bit like Sarge, Simmons, and Donut when they were all firing at Griff to get him to stop yelling in like season three or four.

Continuing with how the routine went, I would get back to base around six, or 6:15 when I ran with Donut, and I would shower, put on my armor, and eat breakfast. Some days I would go shoot targets I set up outside the base, some days I would go to the work out room I found in the base. It was behind the second door to the left of the base. It was pretty nice in there, probably because only me and Tucker on occasion used it besides just walking through. You had to go through that room to get to the armory, where quite a few weapons were stored, but no extra sniper rifles.

The rest of the team got up by eight. Church, who did get painted blue with the help of Caboose and Tucker, would try and lead us in some fashion, telling us we had to be up earlier, that we had duties to do. Only, most days his Spanish would short out at some point in the middle of his rant, and then we would have to find a way to fix it. This went on for a bit over a month before we finally fixed it for good, at least for the most part.  
So then once everything was sorted out and we all spoke English, the four of us would go outside, patrol a bit, spy on the red team, maybe even fire at them a few times if it was a good day. Overall, it was simple, and maybe that was because I knew that the biggest threat to our safety wasn't actually the reds, but Caboose. And not just because he is extremely good at team killing.

Because he was still infected by O'Mally.

At around six, we would go eat dinner, usually something Tucker cooked up for us. Sometimes I would even help out. I had exceptional knife skills which got put to good use in the kitchen. It also scared/ impressed Tucker a little bit, which made it even better.

Some nights we hung out, others we all went our separate ways. I made it a point to try every night to get information about AI's and project freelance, but so far it wasn't working. I wasn't some computer geek who could hack my way in, and I didn't have a lot of clearance, but I did have more than Tucker or Caboose. I didn't bother trying to access the information under Church, I thought that may set off a few too many red flags if Alpha tried looking into himself.

Even if I wasn't finding a lot of information about AI's, I was finding a lot of information about new and different weapons available, what was happening around the galaxy, and general history of the last couple hundred years. It was helpful in a different way, as I could blend in better. I could tell the guys knew I was hiding something, but they didn't ask. At least, not yet, and I was pretty grateful for that.

Speaking of my little secret, I wrote down as many important plot points I could remember from Red vs Blue season 2-12, one side of a sheet for each season, six papers total. I figured actual paper would be better than a computer, as that could get hacked. I kept everything vague too, almost like I had it coded. Names were changed of people and places, I would have hints at things that I knew if I read the papers I would remember what happened, but someone else would be confused. I did not want anyone getting their hands on these. I considered burning them when we left, but since it was only a few pieces, I may be able to store it in my armor.

Unfortunately, nothing I had would help Caboose. It was looking worse and worse for him. The best I could do at this point is tell Church and Tex not to shoot while in his head, but I mean, it's Tex. She will shoot what she wants when she wants, especially if there's a chance to kill O'Malley.

Caboose for the most part was normal, especially around Church. I think that was because O'Malley liked fucking with Tucker. He would threaten him, and Tucker would complain to Church, and Church would have no idea what he was talking about. Mostly he thought they were just fighting for his attention. I tried to stay out of it, and this cause a huge fight between me and Tucker a few days ago. What could I say, though. Hey, your teammate has Tex's old AI in his brain, and she will be coming back soon. Oh, by the way your best friend is an AI too. No, I couldn't, so he got pissed and I got pissed and now we weren't talking.

Which brings us to now. We were all standing outside of Blue Base, and Tucker was trying to tell Church about Caboose and his odd behavior, again. Church was having none of it, again.

"Hey, Church, we have a problem." Tucker confronted Church.

"I am not your mother, so don't come tattling to me every time one of you does something that the other one doesn't like."

"I'm telling you, he's crazy. He keeps threatening me and talking in a scary voice."

"No, I didn't." Caboose said quickly.

"Oh, so you're saying you didn't threaten to cut off my head and give it to Church as a birthday present?"

"You know, I think you're taking my words a little out of context."

"What? What context?"

No one seemed to notice the purple armor man running up towards us. I tilted my head, grabbing my gun, but didn't say anything, just put myself on guard. As he got closer and stopped behind Church, I saw what he carried was not a gun, but a medical scanner. I relaxed, letting out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding. I didn't realize it had been so long since I had gotten here. I didn't realize it was time for the next big adventure.

Season two had just started, and I was really screwed now.


	8. Tout Ancien Redevient

**So I know this is about three hours late, but it is still up on Monday, so I'm happy about that.**

 **I'm about half way through the next chapter, too, and that one I am excited about!**

 **With that said, enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs Blue.**

* * *

Was I the only one who noticed Doc? Probably. I realized something the past few months here, and that was the guys pretty much only saw what was right in front of their face. Maybe they should set their motion trackers...

I glanced at Tucker, but he was pointedly refusing to look my way. And Church, well, he was busy chewing the guys a new one.

"Listen, guys, this competition thing has got to stop, okay? I thought we'd established by now-"

"Excuse me." Doc interrupted.

"Hey, pal? One second, okay? I'm in the middle of something here. Ah, look- I thought we'd established by now, I don't like either of you, okay? So competing for my attention is not gonna do ya any good."

"Excuse me." Doc tried again. Church turned to face him, clearly pissed and annoyed, but that was his usual state. In fact, recently, it was worse. Was O'Malley doing it? Making us all more irritable? Or was it just the fact that we had been here too long in too close quarters?

Three months gone by and still more questions then answers.

"Okay. Yes. Hello. Who're you?" Church asked Doc.

"Don't ever be alone." I overhead O'Malley tell Tucker, using Caboose as the middle man. It was pretty unfair to Caboose, I know that, but a part of me was relieved he wasn't in my head. I mean, what if he got a hold of all the information I knew? We would be so fucked. O'Malley could never get inside my head. Plus, I really didn't want Tex and Church going in there either.

"He's doing that thing again…" Tucker seemed honestly a bit scared now.

"My name's DuFresne... uh, are you Private Tucker?" Doc asked Church.

"No, I am not Private Tucker. My name is Church." He turned and pointed towards the man in question. "This is Private Tucker."

"Yo!" Tucker greeted the man

"And our friend over there in dark blue is Sergeant Taylor, and the guy regulation blue, that's Caboose. Or O'Malley, or whatever the hell he's callin' himself."

"Why did you introduce me third?" Caboose asked.

"Because he hates you." Tucker simply stated.

"I received your call for a medic." Doc seemed to be talking to me, probably because I was technically the highest rank here, even though Church was technically in charge, and Tucker had been the one to make the call.

"Medic? That was like three months ago." Caboose 'helpfully' pointed out.

"Yeah, what'd you do? Crawl all the way here?" Tucker asked.

"I came as quickly as I could. Where's the patient?"

"Well, she's about fifty yards behind you and six feet straight down." Church told him.

"You're a little late." The words came out a bit harsher than I meant. I mean, it wasn't really Doc's fault. It was Project Freelancer that got us into this mess, and probably held off sending him. Actually, he probably wouldn't have been able to help if he was here. I hated to say it, but from a medical standpoint, Doc was pretty useless. It was funny when I watched the show, but to depend on this man for medical help?

 _I would rather Caboose take out the bullet...Scratch that, I'll just do it myself._

Doc turned around and took a long look at the two crosses, marking Tex and Church's grave. When he turned back he just said "I'm sorry about your loss."

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, thanks, man, it was tough but, well, what're you gonna do…"

"We didn't like her very much." Caboose said, then switched to whispering, only it was too loud. "She was mean to other people."

"Caboose." I admonished. Really, she wasn't that bad. I guess she did try to use him as target practice...

"Oh, really? Gonna say something now?" Tucker finally broke, and after three days of pretending I didn't exist, he spoke _and_ looked at me. It was sarcastic, it was rude, and it was Tucker.

"Yeah. I am." I was completely serious, and a bit relieved that this whole argument between us may be resolved soon. I was done pretending Caboose was fine, because he isn't'. I wasn't going to lose Tucker as my friend over something so stupid, not if I could help it.

"Who's in the other grave?" Doc cut in.

"That's uh, that's me. I'm in that grave." Church said.

"Way to ease him into it." I said.

"Uh huh... Of course." Doc clearly didn't believe us. I mean, what self respecting Doctor would? What person would?

"See, uh, he, got killed by this uh, crazy runaway tank." Caboose tried to explain, but Tucker interjected.

"Or by the idiot driving it."

"Oh yeah, and then he became, uh, this really mean ghost, and uh, took over a Mexican robot's body, uh... oh! And then we had to uh, oyathatsright, spray paint him, ah, to make him blue, and now he is alive again, and he is a bionic man... Who... is blue... "

"Right, and it took us six weeks to get his Spanish setting turned off."

There was an audible click sound as Church's Spanish setting kicked on. "No esta completamente apagado, pendejo."

Tucker sighed and told us he would go get the Spanish dictionary, but I shook my head.

"Don't bother. It'll turn off soon enough. Plus, that was probably just an insult at you."

"Oh real nice, dude." Tucker sarcastically told Church.

"Wait, so, no one here is hurt?" Doc interrupted once again, trying to get to the bottom of what was going on around here. He really liked getting right in the middle of things. Another click was heard as Church answered, Spanish now gone.

"No, we're fine. In fact, I feel better than ever. See now whenever these two idiots really start to bug me, I can always just turn my ears off. Couldn't do that before."

"You said they were shorting out." Caboose whined. Another click was heard, but this time it wasn't the Spanish.

"I'm sorry, what was that Caboose? I can't hear you!" Church yelled.

"Caboose, we talked about this. Church lies." I said.

"Yup. It's how I get my entertainment for the day." Church said.

"If you turned your ears off how did you hear that." I asked him.

"So, Doc. You were saying?" Church addressed the medic.

"Well….let me just check you three out, and I'll be on my way." Doc gestured to the three alive members of our team, me included. Oh, hell no. No no no. Not gonna happen, buddy. Didn't sister have to take her armor off for this, and her clothes?

"Whoooa... check us out? Is this gonna be one of those things where I have to turn my head and cough?" Tucker started backing away, towards the base. I was already doing it myself. I hated doctors when they knew what they were doing! Doc was nice, but he was not coming near me. As we backed up, Doc held up his medical scanner. It looked a lot like a gun. Like, more then it should.

 _Who thought that was a good design?_

"No, I'm just gonna check your vitals." He calmly stated. Caboose immediately got into both mine and Tucker's face.

"I bet I have better vitals than you!" He told us, then pause and turned to Church "...What's a vital?"

Church decided to focus on the more pressing issue with what Doc said a moment ago rather than Caboose.

"On your way? I don't think so, bud. Aren't you here to join our squad?"

"No, I'm just here to help out with Tex, and then assist in the canyon as needed."

"First of all, great job on the Tex thing. Mission accomplished. Secondly, the way that we need you to assist, is to help us kill all the Reds."

"Well, even if my orders didn't prohibit me from doing that, I still wouldn't. I joined the army as a conscientious objector."

"A conshe- who?" Tucker asked.

"I'm a pacifist." Doc told him.

"You're a thing that babies suck on...?" Caboose asked. I snorted, but then Tucker had to go and add to it.

" No, dude, that's a pedophile."

Now I was laughing. It was wrong, it was disturbing, it was Red vs Blue. Being here these last few months showed me a new level to the characters here, and that was showing me that they are people. Real people here with real problems.

But hearing this conversation brought up the memories of sitting on my bed binge watching the show, and how _awful_ some of the jokes could be. I couldn't help the few seconds of laughter. A moment of being care free, before reality came back.

"I think he means a pacifier." I said, smiling like an idiot.

"Oh yeah, right. Man, I was totally thinking about something else." Tucker said.

"That's real classy, Tucker." Church told him.

"Well, everyone here checks out." Doc said. I didn't even realize he had been scanning us. Good to know I didn't catch some weird future virus thing yet. "I'll come back and check on you before I leave the canyon. Can you tell me which way to the Red Base?"

"Why? You said you weren't gonna fight 'em." Tucker asked.

"I'm not. Resources are low so I'm on loan to both armies to help whichever side needs me at the time."

"Man, that is so freakin' lame." Church complained, and I have to say I agreed. The thing was, I knew that these bases were set up by the same people Fake war, fake teams, fake scenarios, fake lives.

 _Ah, reality. I had missed you. Not._

"I'm just gonna go to Red Base and see if they need any help."

"Well, if you're gonna go up to Red Base, I'd recommend putting away that little medical thingy of yours. They see you walking up carrying that thing, they're gonna shoot it right out of your hand."

Well would you look at that, Church was trying to help the guy out. Although, he probably should have said something a moment ago, because a shot rang out through the canyon, and Doc's medical scanner got shot out of his hand. I pulled my weapon, dropping into a crouch and looking around for the source of the shot.

"Yeah, just like that." Church told Doc, and another shot hit the ground right between their feet.

"Scatter!"

"Sniper!"

Church and I both called out at the same time. Caboose went left while the rest of us went right. We barely made it to cover when Griff and Simmons came out of wherever they were hiding and really started to lay down the fire.

"This is not looking good. We need a plan." I said, Firing off a few shots, then ducking back behind the rock as a bullet went over my head and into the base wall behind me. I looked at Church, seeing if he would come up with a plan first.

"Okay, Tucker, I need you to get up there, help Caboose shore up the defense, establish a suppressing fire, and hold that position until further notice."

That was Church's big plan? I bet Tucker didn't understand half of that.

"I didn't even know what half of that meant."

Five points to me.

"Just go over to Caboose's rock, and fire your gun a bunch." I told him.

All of us looked over at the rock Caboose decided to hide behind, which looked like it was getting hit harder than our rock. Yeah, that was a party I didn't want to join.

"That rock? Yeah, I don't think so." Tucker said.

"We do not have time to discuss this." Church told him.

"Sure, no time for you to discuss it. You get to hang out here with Nancy No-Bullets and Miss Tex in Training, shootin' the breeze, completely protected. Meanwhile, I'm out there, running around, eating a machine gun sandwich."

I snorted. Gosh, none of this should be funny, but it is. I have to get my emotions in check, or at least my ability to hide them again.

"Tucker, we're gonna give you covering fire." Church said as if it was completely obvious.

"Covering fire? Unless that means you're gonna build a huge, bullet-proof wall between me and them, I think you need to come up with a new plan. Preferably one that involves me keeping the same quantity of blood that I have right now."

"No problem. Oh wait wait, does the blood have to be in your body?"

"Fuck that man, I'm not going. Pick someone else."

Church, actually listening to Tucker, thought about it for a moment, and apparently decided Doc would be a good choice as the next person to send over.

"Alright you, Doc, get over there and help Caboose."

"My name isn't Doc, it's DuFresne."

Apparently, this was the first time anyone actually called him Doc since he got here. It had been so long since this episode I forgot he had a different name, to be honest. Did he mention it earlier? Maybe?

"Yeah. I can't pronounce that, so from now on, your name is Doc." Church said.

"I'm not really comfortable with that. I'm not a doctor, I'm a medic."

"What's the difference?" Tucker asked.

"Well, a doctor cures people. A medic just makes them more comfortable.. while they die."

"Dude. Just no." I told him. As funny as that was at one point, it wasn't as amusing when being shot at and depending on him for medical attention. I've found most things tend to be less funny when being shot at.

"Mental note: don't ever get shot." Tucker added to my statement.

"It's settled then. Your name is now Doc." Church told Doc.

"Alright, but I don't think it'll stick."

I vaguely remembered that, in the show, the camera angle changed and DOC appeared behind him in big, purple, letters, or something close to that effect. I half expected it to happen now, and felt a bit off when it didn't. Instead, Tucker just continues the conversation.

"Oh, trust us, it'll stick."

"Now get over to Caboose, and help him hold that position." Church demanded again. Doc threw up his hands, his voice frustrated. Ah, he was finally cracking a bit.

"I don't have a gun, I'm a pacifist."

"Well then just get over there and yell "bang bang bang".

Doc actually thought about it for a second, before saying ,"Eh, I don't know. Even that sounds pretty aggressive."

"Oh, come on." Tucker complained. It was a bit ridiculous he refused to yell "Bang bang bang"

"Besides, I'm not supposed to get involved unless someone gets hurt." Doc added to his defense.

"Huh. I see."

Church turned towards Caboose and raised his gun. Before I could thing, before I could remember what happened next and what what he was doing, one shot rang out from the gun.

I was on Church in an instant, shoving him face first into the rock wall in front of us. I heard a crack, and I hoped it was his visor cracking. Both his hands were forced outward when I shoved him forward. His right hand still held the gun, and I brought my hand down at the wrist, forcing him to let it go. I grabbed his hands and roughly brought them behind his back, shoving my knee into his spine to help keep him against the rock. The whole thing only took a few seconds.

"OW! What the hell, Taylor!"

" Ahow! My foot…" Caboose cried out from the other rock, over the gun fire.

"Did the robot your possession take over for a second? Because that's the only explanation I have for you SHOOTING A TEAM MATE." I was seeing red. You just don't do that! Caboose may not be the smartest, but he was a person. A team mate. Where did he think he had the right-

"He shot me first, remember! Just a little payback. Plus, I only shot his foot. Relax Taylor."

"Fuck you." I spat out, giving one last shove into the rock before I let go. Tucker reached out to me but I dodged, throwing my hands up and walked to the other side, as far away as I could while still being covered by the rock.

"How did you even manage to hit something?" I muttered, Tucker's short laugh the only thing telling me it wasn't as quiet as I thought. His laugh actually helped me relax a bit, or at least take the edge off my anger. Good thing too, because I was about to break my hand punching the rock near me. Or better yet, Church

"Well, looks like Caboose has hurt himself. Maybe you should get over there and help him, Doc." Church played it off like everything was cool, and now I was back to wanting to drive my fist through his skull. I was so done with his cocky, jack ass attitude.

"You know, you could have just asked nicely." Doc said, taking off in a sprint to Caboose.

"So now what?" Tucker asked. Before Church or I could respond, the haze of bullets cut off.

" I can't believe Church shot me." Caboose voice drifted over through the silence.

"Oh don't even start, Caboose!" Church yelled over to them.

"Anyone else notice the firing. Or lack thereof?" I asked, trying my hardest to not punch the jerk robot right in front of me.

"Hey, yeah. Why aren't the Reds firing?" Tucker asked

"I don't know, maybe they're outta ammo." Church shrugged.

That's right! They're out of ammo. I knew this happened, just not now. I think all the events in my head got a bit screwed up. I felt like this happened later like season 4 or something, but I guess not.

Before I could say anything, Sarge's voice drifted over to us.

"Hey, Blues! We are giving you a chance to surrender!"

"Surrender?" Church questioned, looking over to me. I shrugged, deciding I really didn't want to help him much right now, especially if the rest of the teams greatest danger was him right now. He seemed to think about it for a few seconds before making his decision.

" Yeah, they're definitely outta ammo…" Church moved forward and popped up over the rock we were using as shelter. He is so lucky he was right. "What're your terms?!" He yelled to them.

"Their what?" Tucker asked.

"Shhhs. This will be good." Church told him while the Reds conversed.

"Alright, Blues! First off! We want your flag-!" Sarge's voice yelled to us, then paused for a second before resuming his yelling. " ...to stay right where it is!" I snorted, I mean, this whole thing was ridiculous. Sarge kept yelling so I figured I should at least try to keep paying attention. "Keep the flag! But we do want our mechanized droid guy back!"

"Uh oh." the three of us said.

"You may know him as Señor El Roboto!"

"Well, Church, what's it gonna be?" Tucker asked.

"Chingado, no way. I'm not giving back my body. I just got this thing."

"And don't think you can keep his nuts! Or bolts, or other mechanical parts you may have!" Sarge yelled, interrupting our conversation.

"Uh.. Uh, he's not here anymore!" Church yelled back.

"Yeah, he left! He was all like "Sayonara!" and then he just took off!"

"Adiós" I corrected Tucker.

"Neither of that's Spanish you idiots, that's French and German. Let's try this: Hey, Reds! How about a medic?! Would you take a medic as a hostage?" The first part he angrily whispered to us, and the second part he angrily yelled to the reds. At least he was consistent.

"A hostage? But I'm supposed to go over there." Doc yelled from the other rock. I gave the standard, hand cutting across throat " shut up" gesture to him.

"What?" Doc asked.

Sighing, I just waved him over here. Caboose followed him.

"Hey, Doc. How's the patient?" Church asked Doc once the two of them were safely behind the rock with us. It was getting pretty cramped, but we didn't really have to be behind here anymore. No bullets equals no threat.

"Doing well. He seems very alert and responsive."

"He's talking about Caboose, right?" Tucker cut in, but Church got to the point.

"No, I mean his toe. How's the toe I shot?"

"What, that thing? That fell off like half an hour ago."

Caboose seemed pretty sad when he said "Rest in peace, pinkie toe" but then his voice switched, and O'Malley was the one talking. "You shall be avenged!"

Creepy. As. Fuck.

"Tell you what... Go ahead and send me over. I really don't think I can be any more help." Doc said.

Nodding, Church got back up over the rock and yelled "Okay! We're gonna send over our medic! Now what do we get?!"

"You?! You're surrendering! You don't get anything except humiliation and ridicule!" Simmons voice rang out. I took a look over the rock and saw him, along with Griff, Donut, and Sarge. Donut discreetly waved his hand at his waist when he saw me looking to them, and I moved my hand across my head. It was our little signal, to show we were still friends even if our teams were fighting. It was his idea, something about us being like spies or under cover agents.

"We've already got that! What else do you have?!" Tucker told them.

"What do you want?!"

"How about if you admit that the Red Team sucks?" Church yelled. They whispered for a second, the Sarge yelled back their answer.

"What if we admit that one of us sucks?"

"What do you think, guys?" Church asked us.

"I think I'm going inside. This is going to take like two hours to figure out, and I have other things I could be doing." I told him.

"What? No. You're, like, second in command or some shit. You have to be here for the negotiations."

"There is a reason I was sent out here to fight and not kept at command to negotiate." I said, not even lying. The army wanted me no where near the table when it was negotiating time. I tend to get annoyed, and then mad, and I don't kept those emotions to myself then.

"Come one, it will be fine. What's the worst that could happen?"

 **OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO 45 MINUTES LATER OOOOO OOOOO OOOO**

"Fuck this, just let me shoot them." I angrily whispered to Church.

"No, that's no fun. Come on, don't you want to see one of them make a fool of himself?"

The temptation to yell "I already saw" was overwhelming. I almost did it.

 _Blow your secret on this? You'll never make it to season five if it's this easy to break you._

I took a deep breath. I could do this. I could do this.

"How about four negative comments instead of seven?" Sarge yelled to us.

"I am going to do some target practice. Right here, in front of them. Maybe I can intimidate them into speeding this along." I said, walking over to the side of the base while they continued negotiating. They could have at least set up a table or something, why do we have to yell back and forth?

I set up a few random cans we had out here for the purpose of "Who is a better shot" bets, and then backed up what was an impressive distance, making sure the Reds could see me and the cans. Then I took aim.

"Hey! Why is she firing! This is a negotiation!" Simmons yelled.

"I'm not firing at you, I'm hitting targets! Can't let myself get rusty, can I?" I yelled back before letting off another round into the second can I had set up.

"You're a girl?" Simmons squeaked out. I frowned. I guess I never talked to the Reds besides Donut, and they never found out. Huh, they were really bad at getting information.

"Hey, that's good. Griff has to admit he is a girl for one of his comments!" Church yelled back.

"Deal!" Sarge immediately agreed, with a loud "Hey!" as protest from Griff.

 **OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO 45 MINUTES LATER OOOOO OOOOO**

At least it was only an hour in a half instead of two hours. I guess that's progress.

 _Or the power of intimidation_

"Okay then! We agree to the terms?! You first, and then we send over the medic!" Church yelled.

"I would just like to let everyone know.. that I suck!" Griff monotonous said his required phrases.

"And?" Church prompted.

"And that I'm a girl!"

"What else!?"

"And I like ribbons in my hair! And I want to kiss all the boys!"

"Okay, is that good enough?!" Simmons asked.

"Yeah! Alright, go ahead Doc." Church was laughing as he talked. I decided I was no longer needed and walked into the base.

"Hey! Where are you going?" He asked me.

"Away from you, Church."


	9. Nobody Likes You

**A/N - Late again, but still up on Monday. Next week I will be on vacation so it will probably be a day or two late, but maybe not. I don't know yet.**

 **I was surprised at where this story went this time, but I think I like the end result. I wrote a bit more, but had to cut it off at some point. So the next chapter is started.**

 **Disclaimer - I don't own Red vs Blue**

* * *

For the next two hours, I stayed in the training room. I kicked, punched, and jabbed at everything I could hit in there, pretending it was Church, my old C.O., The Chairman.

I couldn't prove anything, my research led me nowhere, but I was sure he was behind my abduction. When I was out, I had thought I heard the Counselor's voice, but it could have been someone else that sounds similar.

I wanted to help the people here, and that meant taking out the director. Only, I could do it better, faster, smarter then they can. And someone knows that, someone who also wants it done. I don't know how he did it, but if it was the Chairman, he has to know I'm out for his head too. Which is the part that doesn't make sense. But who else has that much power and wants the Director out of the picture?

"arGH!" I was so frustrated. Three months and nothing to show for it!

I kicked too hard at the bag hanging from the ceiling, and stumbled back. Before I could regain my balance by myself, someone had reached out and steadied me.

"Whoa, easy there Miss kicks a lot." Tucker said. I pulled away from him quickly, taking a few steps over to the wall and grabbing the water I had there, facing away from him as I took a sip.

See, I sort of had a crush on Tucker, even before I got here. I could never decide if I liked him or Wash more, and that conflict only increased when I watched season eleven and twelve. Tucker grew up, Wash leveled out. What wasn't to like about those two?

But Tucker was here now. He wasn't just a character in a show anymore, Tucker was my friend. Tucker talked to me, joked around with me, hell, he cooked me dinner. Sure, he was definitely immature, but honestly it was pretty funny most of the time. All through school, I always sat at the guy's table, with all my guy friends, because I found most of their jokes funny. Try to crack those same jokes to another female? They would just get pissed. I think that's why I fit so well with the army. Well, fit for a little while, at least.

"You need something?" I asked, finally willing to turn around and make eye contact. Tucker was out of his armor, like me. I could feel it when he had grabbed me, how his skin felt against my own. He wore a black fit tank top, jeans, and a blue apron over top that had a few splashes of something unidentifiable on it. Whatever it was, it was most likely what was for dinner tonight.

"Just wanted to let you know dinner will be done in ten. Also, I wanted to see if you were working on your upper body strength. See, I know of this great workout, yeah? But you need that arm strength to hold yourself up during it."

"That so? I find cardio and stamina to be a bit more helpful in those types of workouts." I said carefully. "You see, it doesn't matter how strong you are if you can't last very long."

"Bow chika bow wow." Tucker said, a real smile lighting up his face. These past three days when we weren't talking, I really missed him saying that. I think this was us both trying to get things back to normal, to try and end out fight. But I was hungry, and he was probably burning dinner. This talk that we should really have, that could happen later.

"I'm going to go shower, by myself. I'll meet you for dinner." I told him, walking out of the room.

"Its beef stroganoff by the way!" Tucker called after my retreating form. "Nice ass by the way!"

I just shook my head, taking it as a complement and kept going to my room. After a quick shower and a change into black leggings and a blue tshirt, I found myself sitting on the couch with Tucker, Caboose, and Church. All of us were watching NCIS: VARSCALI. From what I learned, Varscali is a water planet somewhere in the galaxy. It actually was pretty similar to the NCIS of our time, which put me at ease a bit. Some things just don't change. Shitty cop shows were one of them.

Eventually, Caboose went to his room. ("I need to go feed Rocky!" He said, referring to his pet rock Church 'got' him a week ago.) Then, Church called the show and us boring, and decided to go to sleep. (If tonight is the night you decided to bang, don't do it on the couch. And don't wake me up, I'm going to sleep.")

As soon as Church was gone from sight, Tucker slid his arm behind me.

"So do you want to-"

"Keep watching this show? Yeah I do." I told him. I didn't remove his arm, but I didn't get any closer to him either.

So we finished watching the episode, but instead of hitting "Next" Tucker stopped it. I shifted to look at him, knowing he wanted to talk.

Since when does the guy want to talk and the girl just want it to blow over?

"I'm sorry." I said, figuring I would start since I was the ass. Plus, I just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. "I'm your friend, and I didn't have your six on this."

"I just don't understand why? I mean, I know you saw it."

"Yeah, well, I have some explaining to do." I sighed, but then an off thought popped into my head. What if O'Malley could hear? Was he listening behind the door? Was the place bugged by Project Freelance? How much was I about to tell Tucker anyway?

If the place was bugged, by anyone, they would know what I know. Solution A would be remove the bug, but I didn't know how to do that. Solution B? That would be inconspicuously get away from the bug.

That I think I could do.

I moved close to Tucker, and his eyebrows scrunched together. I wasn't one to get this close. Usually he was the one invading my personal space.

"Tucker, I was just so scared." I said, making my eyes big and my bottom lip pop out just a bit more then usual. I was putting my acting into good use. "And, ya know, you're a strong, tough guy." I reached out to him and stroked his arm.

"Uh, Taylor?" His voice squeaked, his eyes were big and staring right at my hand on his skin.

"Hunter."

"What?" His eyes shot over and met mine.

"Hunter. That's my first name, ya know? But a lot of people forget. Cause my last name sounds like a first name. Anyway, I thought you would be fine, but I can see it now. You need a bit of help."

"I wouldn't say that-"

My hand slowly moved down, and rested on his upper thigh. He let out a little squeak, and I smiled. I laughed lightly, the sound breathy even to my ears and I winced a bit. That wasn't me acting.

"I want to help." I said, moving forward so our faces almost touched. He pulled away a bit, clearly confused at this turn of events

"Whoa, Talyor, Hunter, I'm not complaining, but this doesn't seem like -"

"Just follow along." I whispered in his ear, my breath probably hot against it "Can you do that?"

I could hear him swallow, feel his head as he nodded. I pulled back a bit, to look him in the eyes. "Kiss me."

"What?" His eyebrows scrunched together, and he tried to pull back. I gripped his arms tighter, my own body betraying how afraid I was, but not at O'Malley finding out the lie. No, my heart felt like it dropped down to my stomach and my mouth was like the Sahara desert for a whole other reason.

Still, I moved forward slowly, breaking eye contact a second before our lips touched. Tucker, either from inexperience or fright, did nothing for what seemed like forever. Feeling a bit rejected, okay a lot more than a bit, I pulled back.

But then Tucker did something. He leaned forward, his lips pressed into mine. It was slow, gentle, a test almost. This was nice, very nice, but not enough.

I pushed harder against his lips, and he pushed back too. In fact, he pushed his whole body forward, and I had to take a step back or fall. Of course, he pushed more, and I kept going back, until I hit the closed door to the bedrooms.

 _Yeah, this is niiiiice_

Tucker was keeping hands pretty stationary, gripping my hips, which wasn't really going to work for me. I moved mine down, taking his and moving his hands down and back on my body. He seemed to take the hint, allowing me to bury my hands in his hair while one of his hands gave a firm squeeze of my ass. I gasped against his lips, and he took this as bad.

"Did I hurt you?" He was searching my face for something, maybe to see if I was in pain. I wasn't.

"Do it again." I growled out.

He did, watching my reaction. I moaned, tilting my head back a bit. I liked my ass being grabbed, a lot.

But this couldn't keep going, no matter how much I liked it.

I reached behind me and opened the door I was pressed against. Tucker lead me back, kissing me once again. Eventually we made it to his door.

"Tucker wait." I breathed out, and immediately even muscle on his froze. Our breathing seemed too loud in the silence.

"I don't want Caboose interrupting and having to explain sex to him. Or worse, Captain killjoy appearing right in the middle of your room. Why don't you put on your armor and meet me outside the base. I know someplace private we can go." I said, the words tasting wrong as spoke a bit too loud. No whispering, because I wanted O'Malley to here. To think nothing was wrong, just the two of us getting some. Because who knows what part of this place is bugged, what parts he can see and hear and whatever else. Caboose wouldn't be that smart, no. But O'Malley? Yeah. I don't trust him or any place he has been.

Tucker seemed to finally get what was going on, at least partly. He nodded stiffly, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes on his face.

"Of course, baby. I just can't believe you're willing to wait to get a piece of me. Bow chika bow wow."

I forced myself to smile back. Tucker used those jokes as a front, to make him seem more 'cool', more 'experienced', like he was better than every other male in the area. When really, he was uncomfortable with the situation.

"I'll just be a sec, the wait will be worth it."

I darted into my room, quickly donning my armor and then going to the ladder that leads us into the upper base. Tucker was waiting at the door out, leaning against it like he was a boy waiting at my locker in high school. He pushed off it when he saw me.

"Where are we going?"

"Over near the rocks."

"Is that because you know i'm going to rock your world?"

"That one was bad." I told him.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, me leading the way to O'Malleys future cave lair. I kept looking back, my ears straining in the night to hear anything that may give away someone following behind us. I lead us in a bit of a circle before finally ending up where we wanted, but I was sure no one had followed us.  
Tucker and I went through the small hallway like whole in the wall that was pretty well hidden until we had reached the main cave.

"How did you find this place?"

"I found it on one of my runs in the morning. More like stumbled across it, really." I said, not really lying about that. I was intentionally looking for it for a week searching different parts of the canyon each time, using my runs as a disguise. One day, I tripped on a rock and landed with my face right in front of the entrance.

"I wanted to take someplace where we couldn't be overheard, and I'm slightly paranoid our place is bugged, and I thought this place would be safe but I couldn't just say "Hey this place is bugged and I need to tell you really important things let go to a secret cave.""

"Whoa Taylor, slow down. Let's start with why you think our place is bugged."

"I have to start with what I wanted to tell you for you to understand why our place may be bugged." I moved to one of the walls, and slid down, patting the place besides me. Tucker picked up on what I wanted and moved to sit next to me.

"Michael J. Caboose. That's his name, his actually name in his military file. I read all of yours before I came here."

"You read my file?" Tucker asked, his voice seemed to lean towards curious rather than upset.

"Ya. Lavernius."

Tucker groaned at his name. "Anything else good in my file besides my name?"

"Oh, a few things. But this is not to reveal what I know about you. It what I know about Caboose, starting with his name."

"Michael J. Caboose."

"Not O'Malley." I prompted.

Tucker let out a long oh, finally seeing at least where I was going with this. "So why is saying it is O'Malley?"

"I don't think Caboose is the one saying it at all. Remember when Church told us Tex had an AI. An aggressive AI, one that made her more violent and mean then she already was?"

"Yeah, but she said it died right before she kicked it."

"No, she said it was gone."

"And somehow it got into Caboose? He wasn't even near her when she died."

"No, but he was the only one on the radio when she kicked it, besides Church, and he is dead already so he would be a poor host."

"So an angry AI infected Caboose."

"Yes. A smart, angry, AI. Now I hate to say this, but Caboose isn't the smartest. He probably thinks he made a new friend. But O'Malley is living it up. Tex never let him take over, but Caboose is so simple minded it is easy to take control, and its getting worse."

"How do you know all this stuff about AI's?"

"I did some research when I first had my theory. I didn't get much, its all super top clearance, need to know shit." I really hoped that was believable enough, because it was mostly the truth.

"So Caboose has an AI that's taking over and turning him evil."

"And who could have bugged the base."

"You really think so?"

"I don't know what to think. I only know he can be dangerous. If he feels threatened, he will skip out of Caboose and find someone else. Maybe me. Maybe you."

"So what do we do?"

"I'm still trying to figure something out. I think, for now, we just keep doing what we do. Don't let him find out we know, at all. No hinting at it, no change in attitude towards him. I'll keep trying to get information on how to get rid of a rogue AI. Can you do that?"

"I think so."

"You have to Tucker. We can't let him know what we know until we can use it against him."

"Taylor, I…"

I grabbed his hand. I wished we were out of this armor, but at the same time I was happy it hid my face so well. I'm sure it would only show Tucker that I cared, a lot, more than I should, about him.

"You can do. We can do it."

We sat there, both thinking. I know I was thinking about the kiss. I should be thinking about how much shit we were in, but If I closed my eyes I could feel the ghost of his lips against mine, how it made my skin tingle.

"Your idea, to get us out here. It was pretty good." Tucker's voice broke my thoughts.  
"Yeah…"

"But it was just a decoy, a good one, but it was just an easy explanation to get us out of the base."

My heart felt heavy as he spoke. I swallowed, not really sure what to say to him. Clearly he didn't like the kiss as much as I thought he did. Was I that bad? Tucker, the sex addict that probably never even got any yet, was rejecting me?

"I-" I didn't even know what to say.

"No, I get it. It's cool." He seemed icy now, pulling his hand away from me and getting up.

"Tucker, that's not-" not what it meant to me. I couldn't get the words out.

"Hey, we can go back and watch one more episode NCIS before we head to bed."

I could only nod as I stood up and followed him out. It was raining outside, not bad but enough. We ran back to base, and when we got there I moved my hand to wipe away the rainwater that was running down my face, but my hand connected with my helmet. I was still wearing my helmet.

Once we were in the living room, Tucker and I just sort of looked at each other. I didn't want to take off my helmet in front of him, I didn't want him to see me cry. Crying was stupid, it was ugly. It wasn't week. No, crying was a sign that you survived the bad things in life. But it wasn't something I liked people seeing me do.

"I'm tired. I'm just going to head in for the night. I'll, uh, see you tomorrow." I said quickly, moving to my room before he could try to stop me.

"yeah, night!" He said.

'Night Tucker."

I stripped down quickly in my room, throwing on my pajamas and crawling into bed. I laid there looking at my ceiling, tears occasionally building up and making it blur.

I had ruined it. I had a chance, and I took it too soon, or I didn't explain it right, or he just didn't want that. Something. I did something wrong, somewhere along the way, and I blew it. My chance with Tucker.


	10. The Joy of Arguing

I woke up at five the next morning, an hour earlier then I needed to. I tried to go back to sleep, but tossed and turned, only to look back at the clock after what seemed like an hour to see only three minutes had passed. Clearly I wouldn't be falling back to sleep. I huffed, and got out of bed. I guess I would just start my run early today.

I threw on my workout clothes, grabbed my ipod, and left the base. Unfortunately, I would miss out on Donuts company this morning. Or maybe I could just run longer, and still meet up with him.

I put my headphones in and selected my running playlist. Then I took off at a jog, planning to run my usual route. Some of the music on here was from red vs blue soundtracks, the first song being "Falling Toward the Sky" Most of there songs were nice to work out to because they were usually background songs to fight scenes. They were made specifically to rise the heart rate of the listener, to make them feel as if they were a part of the fight. Most days, I loved to hear these songs, and to be running in a place where these songs belonged.

Today, I was over Red vs Blue.

Okay, that wasn't true. We were pretty close to the next adventure happening, which would be great, only I wasn't sure what I should and shouldn't change now. What has to happen, to get the team to Chorus. Not that I want to meet Felix, or Locus, but that planet needs them. The residents need them.

Not now though, if these guys showed up the planet would be fucked.

They need the team that forms after everything they've been through. Who am I to stop any of that?

But how can I make it more effective. How can I make it so less people get hurt. That is what I need to figure out. I have done the shittest job so far. I actually got two people killed here on my first day. I mean, Tex and Church needed to "die" but man did I feel guilty about it.

And then there was Tucker.

I royally screwed up that one. He seemed pissed that I lured him out of the base on the premise of sex. I thought he would, I don't know, still try to kiss me once we got to the cave anyway? Or

admit we may have something and then we could talk about trying to see where it goes? I didn't think he would be mad. I didn't think he would turn so icy.

I kept running, and running. Trying to block out the fact that I was still here, with no idea how, and that I've fucked practically everything up.

I didn't end up meeting with Donut, but I did run longer than usual. When I finally went inside I was glad to see I was still the only one up. I quickly walked to my room, my heart rate picking up at the thought of accidentally bumping into Tucker, but I made it safe and sound.

In fact, after I showered, I took my time putting on my armor. I inspected each piece as I put it on, feet up to my head. I heard doors in the hallway open three times while I was doing this, letting me know that my teammates had all gotten up and were eating breakfast.

I got out the notebook I had been writing in. It held all my ideas about what to do, and where the story line would go if I changed this or that. It was mostly a scribbled mess, but it was better than nothing, even if it felt like that I had nothing anyway. I reviewed the last few pages I had wrote. It involved York and how I would stop his death. Then what to do with York after he didn't die. They how to deal with Carolina once she found out York wasn't really dead. It ended with Carolina killing me since it was my idea to fake his death.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

I glanced at my clock, and was surprised to see how much time had passed. I was probably fine to go out of the base and not run into anyone. I hid my notebook in a new spot, it was about time I changed its hiding place anyway, and left my room. I paused at each corner and doorway, making sure I didn't hear anyone, before taking a quick look. Satisfied the coast was clear, I would move onto the next area and repeat, until finally I made it to the outside entrance without running into anyone.

This is where my luck ran out though.

The guys were all standing near the rock we hid behind the other day, right near where I was currently standing, probably talking about how to defeat the Reds.

I think now would be the perfect time to start watch duty.

I quickly walked out, then veered left and went around the back of the base, going up the the top. My heart was beating fast, and I forced myself to take deep, even, breaths.

Once I was sure I wasn't followed and I had calmed down, I started walking the top of the base in a clockwise rotation. I could see a lot from here, and I made sure to check that things had stayed the same since the last time I had this patrol. There was the hole in the wall, still empty. The middle of the canyon had nothing new. To the right of our base was still dirt and rock. The warthog looked like it had moved over at Red Base. It looked like someone moved it to the spot where repairs were usually made, so it was probably Sarge that had moved it. Speaking of, it looked like he was under the jeep now doing something.

I made six loops before I heard someone coming up the ramp. I pulled my gun and aimed at the ramp, only lowering my weapon when I identified Caboose as the newcomer.

"Church told me to tell you that he would like your help fixing Sheila." Caboose said.

I nodded and quickly left Caboose on the top, before realize the faster I left Caboose the sooner I would be in the presence of Tucker.

Honestly I don't know which one I would prefer right now.

I stopped walking, just long enough to get my emotions under complete control, before continuing to the front of the base. Tucker and Church both stood where they had been when I first saw them, pretty much out in the open where anyone could shoot them.

 _Wh- why?_

"Seriously, if we could fix Shelia, we would never have to surrender again." Church explains, again, as I walked up to them. Like all of us didn't already know that. Like we haven't already been working on this for..well, since Shelia blew up with Tex.

"Yeah, you've said that already, Church. Do you think that maybe one of us just didn't understand those past 27 times it was said and now one of us will magically say "Oh, I know how to do that!" I said.

"No, all I'm saying is we need someone who can fix her, Taylor. Nice to see you this morning, by the way."

"I was on patrol...sir."

"Uh huh." Church said.

"Hey Church, if your body is the Red Team's old droid, and droids usually fix stuff, can't you just activate your repair sequence and fix Sheila?" Tucker asked.

"That's….actually a pretty good idea." I said.

"Don't sound so surprised." Tucker said sarcastically. I ignored him, figuring it would be best.

"Huh... Well, yeah it's worth a shot, I guess." Church said after a moment of thinking. He then cleared his throat and told us to stand back. Rolling my eyes, I did as he asked and Tucker did the same.

"Huhrur...! Heeungh...! Hoom...!" Church started making these weird noises. It wasn't like he was playing tennis here.

"Anything?" Tucker asked

"Yeah, it's not as easy as you'd think it would be." Church said.

"Maybe there's a button on you somewhere…" Tucker trailed off, his eyes and mine already looking for the button before his sentence even ended.

"See what you two can find. I'll keep trying from in here…" Church continued to make those stupid noises while Tucker and I moved around him, looking for any random buttons or switches. Switches...

 _The switch near his crotch!_

I coughed, covering my laugh that almost escaped. This stupid switch, that was what was going on now. Oh my god it would cause so many problems for the Reds. Should I really let this happen? I could always stop it pretty easily…

"Hey!" Church suddenly called out, making me jump.

"Found it?" Tucker asked him.

"Nah, no wait. All I found was the time and temperature function. It is currently twenty-six degrees, by the way."

"What? It's not twenty-six degrees out here, that's freezing."

"Celsius, Tucker." Church told him.

"Oh come on, dude, Celsius sucks." Tucker said, kneeling down in front of Church and looking around some more.

"Many people use Celsius, Tucker." I told him as I looked on Church's back.

"Yeah, and those people are wrong. Hey, I found something." I looked over Church to see Tucker standing up. I didn't even realize he had kneeled.

"Oh yeah? You found a button?" Church asked.

"Naw, dude, it's more like a ..switch."

"Well, give it a flip."

"I don't wanna flip it." Tucker practically whined, clearly uncomfortable with the placement of said switch.

"What's the problem?" Church asked, not catching on.

"It's in a weird place." Tucker shifted on his feet.

"Oh you've gotta be kidding me."

"You flip it." Tucker told him,

"These arms aren't that flexible, I can't even reach down there."

"What about Caboose?"

"Oh man, he's so stupid, I don't even know if he knows how to operate a switch."

"I'll flip it." I said, moving to the front.

"What? No." Tucker said, moving to block my path to Church and his crotch. I tilted my head, a bit confused as to why he wouldn't let me do it. He couldn't be...jealous?

"What's wrong, don't want me flipping another man's switch?" I half joked, trying to lighten the mood between us, but I think I just made it worse. He tilted his head down away from me, his body seeming to tense even more, but he didn't move out of my way.

"Relax, Tucker, it's not like I'm giving him a handjob. It's just a switch, yeah?"

Tucker still didn't say anything, still blocking my path, still not looking at me.

"Jesus, the sexual tension between you too is ridiculous, it's so thick I could punch at it. Tucker, just let her flip the damn switch since you won't." Church said.

Tucker reluctantly moved out of the way, allowing me to kneel in front of Church. I had a pretty good view of the switch, which was on his left thigh right next to his crotch. Like as close as Sarge could have possibly put it.

I also had a very nice view of some robotic Lopez crotch, which technically I guess was Church's crotch right now. Not one to pass up such an opportunity, I did the first thing that came to mind.

"Oh wow, you have such a big switch Church." I said as seductively as I could, but I couldn't keep it going, my amusement taking over causing me to laugh. Church choked, then started laughing too. Tucker did not find it as funny.

"Alright, that's it, I'll do it." Tucker said, grabbing my arm and pulling me up. He moved himself so he was between me and Church, and still didn't let go of my arm. I shook away his hand, and punched his arm as hard as I could, causing him to stumble back.

"Ow, man what was that for." He asked me, grabbing his arm where I had punched it.

"Tucker, Let's get one thing straight here. I am not your girlfriend. Even if I was, you have no right to tell me what to do, or pull me like that. Now, either grow a pair and flip your friends switch, or stand back and let me do it." I growled. He held his hands up and backed up a step towards Church.  
"Alright, alright, I will do it." He said, getting down in front of Church where I just was. I crossed my arms and watched, too pissed to find this funny anymore. Who does he think he is, the fucking jackass, rejecting me and then acting like I was in the wrong when I make a harmless joke.

When Tucker hesitated to flip the switch, even after all that, Church attempted to cox him a bit more.

"C'm-Tucker, come on. We'll laugh about it later. I'll buy you dinner."

Tucker sighed and just went for it. Only, nothing happened and he stood back up. "It won't move, it's stuck."

"Did you try wiggling it?" Church asked.

"No way, I'm not wiggling your dongle." Tucker said.

"Oh, stop being a baby. Just wiggle it." Church told him. Again, Tucker knelt in front of his friend, hesitating to reach out.

"... So, you from around here, baby?" Church asked. Tucker scrambled back, stumbling as he stood up.

"Okay look, if you want me to do this, you can't talk-"

I quickly knelt down and flicked the switch before I died from old age.

"There. It's done. Anything on your end Church?" I said, ignoring Tucker as he threw up his hands, clearly pissed too. Good, let him be pissed.

" Nope. Nothin'... That's kinda weird. Do you hear something beeping?"

"What?" Tucker, Caboose, and I all said at the same time. Only, I wasn't expecting him. Where did he even come from? The longer O'Malley stayed in Caboose's head, the more stealthy he became. Seriously, he is getting really good at sneaking up on people. I was wearing myself out most days just trying to make sure I knew where he was at all times.

"There, you hear that?"

I strained my ears, and very, very faintly heard the beeping noise coming from extremely far away. The beeping that I think should be coming from the warthog.

"Is it like a screaming, high pitched whistling noise followed by a series of random clicks?" Tucker asked.

"No, it's just like this constant "beep beep beep" "noise." Church slowly explained.

"Oh. Then no, I don't hear anything."

"Do you eh, wait - do you actually hear a series of whistling noises followed by some random clicks?" Church asked.

"No, I was just tryin' to be helpful." Tucker said.

"Yeah, well, you're failing." Church told him.

"All I hear is that voice, you know, telling us to kill all of our friends before they have a chance to kill us." Caboose added in.

That. That right there was the type of shit that was the scariest part of O'Malley taking over. Caboose being influence by O'Malley. Sure, O'Malley takes over, and we are all screwed. But Church could potentially fix it, if it all went to hell too soon. But Caboose listening to his new 'friend'. What would I tell him, 'don't listen to the voice in your head?' then I would have O'Malley gunning for me as the first person to kill.

Tucker and I shared a look, before both of us seemed to realized we were both pissed at each other, so we both looked back towards Caboose. This was going downhill, fast. I hope Tex shows up soon. Maybe we could talk over a solution besides firing live ammo inside the poor kid's head.

 _Ha. Tex. Talking._

When the three of us just kept staring at Caboose, he finally realized something was wrong,

"Wait, you guys don't hear that?"

"Oh man, I can't take this any more. Tucker, you're gonna have to do something, man, this beeping is going to drive me crazy." Church complained, bringing us back to the problem at hand right now, the beeping.

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know, man. Flip it back?"

"Oh. No way."

"Taylor?" Church turned to me.

"Once wasn't enough?" I replied back.

"Caboose?"

"Okay!" Caboose said happily.

"Do you know what you just agreed to do?" I asked him.

"Er...No."

"It's simple. All you have to do is kneel down, and flip the switch." Church explained.

"Oh. I can do that." Caboose got down and stared at Church way too long. I looked over Church's shoulder for a moment, expecting to see the boring canyon that was always there, only to be greeted with the sight of Red Team's warthog driving around the canyon by itself.

"I see a switch down here. It's not very big." Caboose said.

"Oh yeah, that's it. Just flip it." Tucker told him.

"Wait, stop." Church practically yelled before Caboose even moved his hand. I glanced over to see that the warthog had stopped itself. Tucker seemed to not notice it, and Church wasn't facing that way. Caboose was too busy focusing on his switch 101 class from Church to pay attention to anything else.

"Alright. Here's a full tutorial then. The switch is pointed in one direction, just turn it around so that it's pointed in the other direction."

When Church said turn around, the warthog did do just that. The was vehicle now faced the red base, ready for its instructions. This was followed by the sound of something breaking, followed by Caboose's "Oops. It broke itself."

"UGH!" Church complained. The warthog, though, didn't shut down. Caboose broke it while it was still transmitting instructions. The reds were in for a nasty surprise today.

"Tucker, get down there and see about fixing this."

Caboose stood up and moved out of the way, letting Tucker get a good look at Church's crotch. This view wasn't actually that bad, now that I was less pissed off. I tilted my head and crossed my arms, taking a half a step back, allowing myself to take in the view.

 _The fanfics one could write from this alone._

"Okay, I see two wires down here. One's green, the other one's red." Tucker informed Church.

"What about the blue one?"

"That's your thumb, idiot." Tucker told him.

"Come on, just grab whichever one goes to the switch, and yank it out." Church said.

"Eh, I can't tell which one goes over there."

"Then just yank 'em both."

"Church, if we pick the wrong one you could explode." Caboose told him, completely serious. He actually had a point, not that anyone else knew of the bomb inside his stomach. Since no one actually died from it, I figured it was best to just leave it where it was for now. I mean, we could explode trying to remove it.

"I don't care, look, just follow the red one." Church told us.

Caboose and I both kneeled down now, trying to get a better look. I was actually trying to help, I had no idea if Caboose was following any of this.

"Okay, I see what's going on here. The red one goes close to the switch, and the green one goes.. eugh, someplace else." Tucker said.

"Fine, just pull it. Take out the red one."

Tucker started counting down, getting ready to pull the wire. I quickly scanned the red wire, and saw it actually connected someplace...else. But wasn't that where the green one was supposed to go?

Following the green wire I saw that was the one that lead to the button.

"Tucker wait that wire -"

This small electrically sound coming from the wire being pulled was what cut me off.

"Oh god, yes! Finally! Some freakin' peace and quiet! I thought that was gonna drive me nuts! ...Hey. Why can't I move my legs?"

"goes to his legs." I finished.


	11. Bad Ride

**I hope you're all enjoying the story so far! I know I am, and I don't plan on ending this anytime soon. I have plans, people. Like, season 12 plans.**

 **This chapter is nice and long too. I tried adding a bit more imagery, more details, and more of what Hunter is thinking. I think I did pretty well, not great, but decent.**

 **Anyway, enjoy the new chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Red Vs Blue.**

* * *

I stared in horror at Caboose's hand. Tucker had listened to me, freezing when I told him to wait, his aqua armor covered hand hanging in the air as he did as I asked. Caboose did not listen. He had reached forward and, gripping all the wires, pulled them out.

"This is great, this is just great! Thanks a lot, Caboose. Now what'm I supposed to do? My lower half is damaged." Church complained, his hands thrown into the air. We all stood up then so that we weren't eye level at Church crotch during this conversation.

"Why don't you try walking it off?" Caboose asked him. It would have been funny if he wasn't seriously suggesting it.

"I can't use my legs, moron."

"Oh, I see. ...Have you tried running?"

"This doesn't seem like that big a deal. You hardly ever used your legs before anyway. I've never heard of a grown man asking for so many piggy-back rides." Tucker cut in.

"Hey, I already told you: that was for science." Church defend himself. He did, in fact, try to say this a while ago. That he didn't know if ghost weighed anything, and wanted to know, so he asked Tucker to try and lift him, and figured the simplest way to do that was to ask for a piggy-back ride. It wasn't the worst attempt at an explanation I had heard.

"Why don't you just try walking on your hands? Then you could use your feet for high fiiiiives, and ...eatin' sandwicheeeees... and, you know, the important stuff." Caboose suggested. While he did, his hands waved about, specifically the one with the wires still in them. They wouldn't be there for long if he kept this up.

"Caboose, why don't you give me those wires." I said slowly, trying to act very pleasant and calm. My eyes didn't leave his hand.

"Sure! Wait why?" Caboose asked suspiciously.

"I want to fix your friend." I told him, then wincing. I was going to face some major heat later from Church for that one.

"I am not-" Church started to argue but I cut him off

"able to walk." I ended his sentence, my voice too high pitched at the end, a fake smile plastered on my face even though no one could actually see it. Internally, I was was the best I could do? That was an awful end to his sentence. Good thing this was Caboose we were talking to, and not Tex or Wash.

"Church is not able to walk, and I can help him if I have those wires."

"Oh. Okay!" Caboose said, and handed them right over to me.

"So now what?" Tucker asked.

"Well just start reattaching wires, I'll tell you when I feel something." Church said. I kneeled in front of him once more, Tucker doing the same to my right.

"What about that? Do you feel that, Church?" Tucker asked, not doing anything at all. What was he up to? I gave him a confused look, but it's not like he could see it.

"No, what're you doing? I don't feel anything." Church asked, paranoid at what we were doing down here, which was nothing. I smiled, finally getting it.

"Oh, well I guess we should try something else." I said, snicker. But, not wanting to delay things much longer, I actually got to work.

"Oh, Church? You know, I was thinkin'. ...Uh yih yih ya know, when you, when you eat ice cream too fast sometimes and it hurts your brain?" Caboose said. He was still standing, not allowed to help.

"Hey, Caboose? Yeah. Shut up." Church told him, but he didn't listen.

"Uhhhh... Church? I think that you should know that the Reds are-"

"Dammit, Caboose! In the short time I've known you, you've managed to call my girlfriend a slut, blow me up with a tank, shoot me in the head, and now paralyze me from the waist down! So I hope it's not too much for me to ask, just for once, if you'd shut yer freakin' mouth!"

"Hey, Blues," Simmons voice came from below our base. Oh shit. "we're here to- What the hell are you guys doing!?"

"Tag teaming Church, care to join?" I called out before I thought about what I was saying. Tucker scrambled backwards, you could hear the metal scraping against the concrete as he did so,stumbling and finally standing up. He brushed himself off like he got dirt or something on him.

"Thats not- we weren't- there's no way-"

"Calm down, Tucker." I said, making no effort to hide my amusement in my voice. I stood up too, though, figuring it was for the best.

"What? Caboose, why didn't you say anything about the reds? Hey. One of you guys turn me around. I still can't move my legs." Church's voice was filled with anger, but he was careful to keep it quiet enough so only we could hear.

"You want us to man handle you some more in front of the reds?" I asked him.

"Well, if _you_ did it…" Church trailed off as I crossed my arms, practically daring him to finish that sentence. Luckily, he was saved by Grif.

"Is that what you were really doing down there?"

"No. What're you talking about?" Tucker said, trying to play it cool.

"We were just playing a game!" Caboose called out. Yeah, this keeps getting better and better. At least to me. Who would have thought such a shitty day would turn out to be actually really amusing.

"Hey, Caboose, we'll handle this." Church told him. " Whaddaya want, Reds? Get outta here or we'll start shootin' at ya!"

"Oh yeah? You care to make that threat to my face?" Grif asked. Church attempted to turn around, managing to move his torso just a bit, straining, but it was not enough to look back at the Reds.

"Uhgh... no." Church said after a moment, admitting defeat.

"Yeah I didn't think so. Punk."

"Whoa whoa whoa, calm down guys. We didn't come here to fight. We just came to give back the prisoner." Simmons said.

"Give him back? You can't give him back, you took him, a deal's a deal." Tucker said.

"Yeah, well forget it. We don't want him." Griff told us.

"Well, sorry, you can't have another prisoner. That was our last one." Church told them.

"Hey, dude, what is your problem?"

"Didn't your mama ever tell you it's impolite not to look at someone when you're talking to them?"

"He's shy!" Caboose shouted out.

Church told Caboose to shut up, then shouted at the Reds.

"Look, we don't want him back, and we don't care what you do with him. Now if you don't mind, we'd appreciate if you'd leave us alone. We're in the middle of somethin'.. kinda private over here."

"but don't come asking for him back later." Griff told us.

The three of them started to head back to Red base, clearly trying to show us that they meant business, but we weren't biting.

"We won't." Tucker yelled.

"Last chance." Grif yelled back.

Church, at the end of rope not being able to see what was happening, told them to beat it.

"Alright, we're goin', we're goin'!"

"What's going on? Are they there? Did they leave? Hey, somebody tell me what's happening!" Church asked us, his head moving between the three of us until Tucker finally told him.

"I don't know, I can't really see too clearly. I bet I could see better if I had that sniper rifle…"

"Uh, Tucker, you might wanna look behind you."

Tucker did just that, coming face to face with Caboose holding the sniper rifle he so desperately wanted. Caboose raised it so he could get a better look out into the canyon.

"Mother fucker!" Tucker said.

 _My sentiments exactly._

It wasn't just Caboose who had the sniper. It was O'Malley.

"Uh, ooo Church, Church! Okay, I s-I see something... okay... uh the two red ones are walking away... uhhh... but the purple one is…" Caboose voice changed, and now O'Malley was the one that was speaking "I think he's going to attack."

"Purple? Oh wait, the purple guy's that worthless medic." Church explained.

"He's not gonna attack, he's a pussy fest." Tucker added.

"Pacifist." Church and I both said at the same time.

"Ahhh, whatever, let's tie him up and roll him through the teleporter."

"Wait a second, wait a second, think about this for a minute. Why would the Reds leave him out there by himself? This has to be some kind of trick."

"I'll bet they've used some kind of brainwashing technique on him. They're, they're probably planning to have him do all their dirty plans... and also the schemes…"

Caboose shifted his gaze, and the rifle at the same time, to Tucker. He was probably zooming in and out too. How did that not hurt his eyes?

"Caboose, that is ridiculous." Tucker told him.

"Is it? Or is it so ridiculous, it's the most ridiculously perfect idea that you never thought of?"

"No, just the regular kinda ridiculous." Tucker said, and I nodded my head in agreement.

"Well just keep your eye on him. We'll know it's a trick if he tries to get into our base." Church added. Caboose complied, pointing the sniper out at the field, searching for Doc.

"Or it's not a trick." I said.

"Then what would he be doing out there?"

"We don't want him, the Red's don't want him. Where else could he go?"

Just to really hit the point home, Doc's voice carried over to our base. He was standing back far enough that he could duck for cover if we started shooting, but so that we could still hear him.

"Hey, guys, uh, do you think I could come and hang out at your base for a while?"

"I knew it! We're all gonna die!" Caboose exclaimed. He shifted the rifle back onto Tucker head, the back of it no less because Tucker wasn't facing him.

"Starting with you." O'Malley said.

I didn't even think about what I was doing, really, until it was done. I guess I was moving on autopilot. I knocked the gun to the side, smashing my other hand into his wrist almost simultaneously. I expected more pain then what I felt, but it was a nice surprise when no pain came. I shoved Caboose back with as much force as I could, and he flew into one of the defence walls around the perimeter of the roof. I knew my suit enhanced my strength a bit, but damn.

The clang of the gun hitting the ground rang out only after the loud band of Caboose back hitting the wall.

The whole thing was over in two seconds.

I didn't take my eyes off Caboose/O'Malley yet. Hell, I hadn't even lowered my arms, still in position to fight. I was breathing heavily and tried to take big breaths in and long breaths out. Caboose had collapsed at this point in a groaning heap on the ground, and it was now that I felt it safe to say I won.

"No." I said as a last warning to him. Tucker would not be hurt by O'Malley, I didn't care what the fuck I changed. I relaxed my stance, lowering my arms and flexing my hands. That armor was really useful, because without it both my hands would probably be broken. I bent down, picked up the sniper rifle and looked back at the other two. Caboose was still groaning behind me, but I didn't bother to check on him. It was a bit cruel, but I was done playing nice with the stupid AI.

"What?" I asked Tucker and Church, when neither looked away from me. I mean, Church couldn't move, but still. It's not like I left any lasting damage. I did the same thing to Church the other day when he shot Caboose. When will they get it that I will not allow team violence. I failed to protect my team once, I was not letting it happen again.

"Guys?" Doc called out, reminding us of his presence.

"Yeah, uh, Sorry, but we're kinda busy here. So go away.. or something." Tucker called over his shoulder to Doc, not taking his eyes off of me. It was starting to freak me out a bit. I mean, did I grow another head? I know we were fighting or I don't even know what anymore, but did he really think I would let O'Malley get him?

"Normally I wouldn't impose, it's just that I don't know the neighborhood too well, and-" Doc kept trying to come up with an excuse to stay, but Church shot it down.

"Listen, Doc, you're not fooling anybody with that innocent victim routine."

"Hey, uh, I could help! I know more than just medicine! I'm trained in psychology too. Maybe I could help you with your problem facing people!"

 _Yeah, him and Dr. Gray will get along just great._

"Just.. get outta here! And tell your buddies the Reds that their little "plan" failed." Church told him.

Tucker and I watched Doc run away, and I took over watching through the sniper rifle when he got too far for the human eye.

"Alright, he didn't go back to red base. He is just sort of wandering around the edge of the canyon." I told everyone. Pretty soon he would find that cave, right? I guess I should bring him some stuff. There was no need to be that rude to the guy. I made a mental note to do that later. I wonder if there was like a note app in this helmet. I should really check out my helmet features more. Another mental note to do that later too.

"Does someone want to check on Caboose?" Church asked.

"He's fine" and "Why?" were his answers from us. He sighed and went to move forward. When nothing happened, he seemed to remember the predicament he was in.

"Alright, what the hell are we gonna do? I gotta get my legs working, here."

"I don't know, but I can't just keep pulling wires down there. I think we should call in a professional. Maybe someone who can fix Sheila too."

"Okay, great idea, but the only two people that can do that are Senior El Roboto and Tex."

"Hmm, Tex can be kinda hard to work with." Caboose said from his spot on the floor.

"Yeah, dead people usually are." Tucker added.

Church just sighed, moving his hands to rub his face only to find his helmet in the way. He gave up on that and focused on Tucker. "Quite frankly, Tucker, I find your attitude offensive."

"So, we're left with Lopez then." I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Caboose slowly standing up. He limped over to the group again, and now I sort of felt bad. It wasn't Caboose's fault he was infected. I had to get O'Malley out of there, because right now I'm thinking I am his number one target.

 _Shit._

"No. I'm in his body, remember? In fact, your the one who told me the more I leave the harder it will be to reposs him."

"Well, why don't you just leave his body, and then Tucker and I will make him fix you and my girlfriend!" Caboose added in now that he was back in our brainstorming circle.

"Girlfriend?" Tucker asked.

"What're you, a retard?" Church said.

"Hey" I reprimanded immediately. Some things you just don't go there. Calling someone that was one of those things. If I caught someone using that as an insult back when I was in charge, they would scrub toilets for a week. Pretty soon everyone caught on to "Sergeant Taylor's list of big fucking no-no's."

"I-I mean uh, Tucker and I will make him fix you, and ah, the beautiful tank lady means nothing to me, uh then we can get you back in his body when he is done." Caboose tried to re explain.

"I'm confused. That actually seems like a good idea." Tucker said.

"I know…" Church agreed

"But Caboose said it."

"I know!"

Tucker went and swung out his arm, the pistol in his hand hitting Church right in the face. I'm surprised he didn't fall down actually, since it wasn't like his feet were magnetized to the floor, they just weren't working.

"OW! What the hell was that for?"

"I don't know, I thought maybe I was dreaming. So I punched you in the face to make sure I wasn't."

"Tucker, when you think you're dreaming, you don't punch somebody else, you get somebody else to pinch you!

"Dude, it doesn't matter what kind of dream I'm having, I am not going to ask you to pinch me."

"And you!" Church looked at me. "Where is the whole "Don't hurt team members" routine that you just pulled on Caboose and on me yesterday?"

"Tucker just hit you in the face. If you can't take a hit then why are you here? I mean, it's not going to kill you. Shooting someone on the other hand will, and how was I supposed to know you weren't firing to kill. Caboose certainly seemed like he was going to. Tuckers punch seemed like a one and done thing. If he kept going I would have intervened. Buuut." I added, when it looked like Church was going to argue more. "Tucker still shouldn't have done that."

"That's it? he shouldn't have done it?" I shrugged. I wasn't the one in charge here, he was. That was all this was. This was not about how I would hate to hurt Tucker. And this definitely was not about last night. I mean, I could get that close again to Tucker to take him out instead of kissing the shit out of him. I could do it, if I had to. But I didn't have to.

 _Yep. There was nothing else to this. Not at all._

"Man, that's bullshit. And if you dented my forehead, Tucker, I'm going to be pissed!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" Tucker said, but didn't sound too concerned. In fact, he sounded happy. Like really happy.

"Let's try this. I'll jump outta Lopez's body real quick, you three just watch him and make sure he doesn't try anything. Got it?"

"Okay," We all said.

Church cleared his throat. "Alright, here's goes nothing. Hegerkerker."

Church, or Lopez, seemed to vibrated. It wasn't violent, but it was there, all over his body, then it seemed to stop as sudden as it had started.

"You know, I have to hand it to you, Caboose, you finally came up with a good idea." Tucker told him. I was surprised. Tucker giving Caboose a complement?

"Aw, thanks, man. It was nothing." Caboose replied, actually seeming a bit shy about the whole thing. I realized I was focusing on Caboose and not on Lopez, and when I looked back at what I thought would be an unresponsive shell I saw that Lopez was shaking his head, as if coming out of a daze.

"No, no, you really contributed, and that's what it's all about." Tucker told Caboose, not seeing what I was. Lopez took off, hopping off the base and running away.

"Uh, guys."

"You know, I just enjoy the process." Caboose said.

"Shit, guys!" I spoke up louder, running over to the side and raising the sniper rifle.

"Yeah, back in the spirit world, alright! Man, I forgot how good this feels.. kinda loosey goosey. Hey, what'd you guys do with my body?" Church said. He must have materialized behind us.

"What do you care about you body, you can't even move your-" Tucker paused, probably finallys seeing what I was. "Oh hey, look, your legs work!"

"Permission to fire, Sir?" I asked.

"Whoa, whoa, no man! You're gonna damage my body if you shoot!" I lowered my rifle and turned to face everyone else, seeing a very ghostly Church. "You guys go through the teleporter and cut him off. I'll meet you guys out there."

Church faded out, leaving the three of us to just stare at the teleporter.

"There's no way I'm going through the teleporter again. I still got this tingle in the back of my... " I raised my eyebrow at Tucker, and he seemed to realize what he was saying. "look, dude, I'm just not going back through the teleporter, okay?"

"But Church said so-"

"Yeah, but Church didn't think of THIS!" Tucker grabbed a grenade, pulling the pin, and threw it into the teleporter. "Come on, lets go."

Tucker jumped off the building, sprinting in the direction Lopez went. I used my sniper to gesture at Caboose to follow first. I wasn't having both Tuckers and my back to him.

As the three of us now ran towards what was sure to be a gun fight at some point, I called out to Tucker.

"You think that was the best idea?"

"Hell yeah it was. Just wait, you'll see." He called back to me.

We ran past a few notable spots in the canyon. Only noticeable if you have been here long enough, that is. The red rock in the cliff face that looked like pikachu was first, and I mean like there were no if's, ands, or buts about it, that right there was Pikachu. Ya know, if he was smooshed a bit. And if his ears weren't as pointy. Alright, maybe it was more like a cross between Pickachu and that gray cat... Pushin or Pusheen?

Next we ran past the random patch of grass growing in the middle of a rock. It was just out of place enough to notice. Like someone had purposefully done it, but who would do such a thing? The rock was just a bit _too_ far away from the wall and the other rocks around it, and the grass was basically a perfect circle on top. I couldn't even draw a perfect circle and yet mother nature decided to go and put it on a rock?

And finally up ahead was the entrance to the cave, the one that Tucker and I were in last night.

That last one made my chest tighten uncomfortable. I actually stumbled a bit, my foot catching on something I didn't see in time, but I rightened myself before and kept going. I could not think about that right now, not the way his lips felt warm against mine, or how they tasted just a bit sweet, like he had to have just eaten some candy. I couldn't think about how upset he was at me, how I had ruined everything with the one kiss that I would never forget.

I would get myself hurt, physically hurt, if I didn't get control of myself.

Push down the feelings until a better time, that's all I had to do.

As we started closing the was a loud explosion up ahead. Right after you could see a cloud of dirt just appear in the air, looking like clouds floating too close to the ground. Then you could see the dirt, grass chunks, and rocks, all flying fast at us. I could hear it scraping at our armor, see it hitting my visor, but felt nothing. These suits protect us well.

But they didn't protect from the memories.

 _Push down the feeling_ s.

I focused on my feet, pushing against the ground, feeling it happening under my feet. Not in some far off memory of the past but in the here and now. I was not in the middle east any more.

No, I was in a new war zone. With a crazy AI, a guy who may or may not hate me, and a crazy, world dominating AI inside a...well… I don't know what to even call Caboose.

And this wasn't even the good part yet.


	12. I Dream of Spanish Subtitles

**I want to say sorry for the wait. School got busy and this story got put on the back burner while that happened. I'm sure in a few weeks it will happen again, for a shorter time, but I hope to be far ahead on this story by then anyway.**

 **So without further delay, here is your new chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Red Vs Blue.**

* * *

Taking a deep breath, I pushed every thought from my mind, choosing to focus on making sure Tucker and Caboose were kept safe. The three of us were quickly walking across the canyon, covering the distance between us and Lopez in a few seconds. Weapons drawn, of course, we slowed as we approached. I watched both Lopez and Caboose, making sure neither did anything weird.

"Hold it right there, ambre!" Tucker called out to Lopez, stopping a few feet before him. Caboose and I did the same, flanking him. Lopez didn't seem too worried about the guns, but he also didn't move. "I told you throwing that grenade through the teleporter would work! Church is gonna be so impressed." Tucker told us.

"And Sheila will love me again, and this time for who I am and not just for my stunning good looks. But for those too." Caboose replied.

"Maldita estos bastardos azules. Realmente son tan estúpidos como parecen." Lopez said. I frowned, trying my best to figure out what he was saying. All I had on my side was high school french and Dora the Explorer. You would be surprised how many words are alike in French and Spanish. It also helped that his robot voice slowed his speech. I made out the words 'blue bastards' and 'stupid'.

"Insulting the people with a weapon to your head isn't helping your situation." I said.

"You speak spanish? Why was I always looking up words in the dictionary if you speak it!" Tucker asked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his weapon drop, his attention focused on was sort of stupid.

"To expand your education." I said.

"Your soul is a cavern of lies!" O'Malley said, taking over Caboose as he jabbed his weapon towards Lopez, so I assumed that was towards him and not my statement.

"What the hell is going on?" Tucker asked, raising his gun once more at Lopez.

"Es posible que haya ganado esta ronda , pero su reinado cruel tiranía será de corta duración . Las personas rojas serán avenged-"

Okay, so 'possible', 'won', 'round', 'cruel', 'red people', 'avenged'. That was all I got before Tucker cut him off.

"Yeah yeah yeah, nobody cares. We need you to fix our tank."

"Nunca voy a trabajar para el enemigo. ¿Puede un viruela sea con tu alma y tu casa."

'No help enemy', 'virus', 'house'. Did he just put a plague upon my house? What was this, shakespeare?

"Larga tienen mi pueblo sufrido , pero muy pronto veremos la llegada de un nuevo día. El amanecer de nuestro tiempo está cerca-"

long, people, suffered. Uhh, new year, or era, probably? Oh, screw thing, our helmets had to have something to translate. Its advance technology, right? I fiddled around with the buttons on my helmet until I found a settings menu. Holy shit, right there was a setting for English subtitles. So if I selected that…

"- del campo sabrá que este es su momento" Lopez said, and at the bottom of my visor appeared the words "the field will know that this is your time"

"Holy. Shit." I breathed out. How come this wasn't common knowledge? Did they just not bother to look? Actually, that's probably what happened.

"What? What did he say? Because, man, I thought Church talked too much. You think if I kick him in the switch he'll shut up?" Tucker asked me, thinking my holy shit was about something Lopez said and not at the fact that I could now actually understand what Lopez was saying.

"Um, Taylor, Tucker, I think that maybe we should begin the going of the running now! The fast running!" Caboose cut in before I could explain my new found tool. I followed Cabooses line of vision and saw Sarge and Simmons in the warthog, gaining on our position, the ridiculous polka music just reaching my ears as I did.

"Oh crap!" Tucker said.

Simmons moves the turret, aiming for our little group, not even realizing that it is Lopez with us due to the painted armor. He was turning on his own guy and he didn't even know it. Man, that sucked a lot.

"That's right," Tuckers quiet voice broke me from my thoughts. "we're just casually strolling away." Tucker was backing up as he spoke. I followed, waiting for the right moment to run. "No cause for concern…"

"Running time!" Caboose yelled as he took off for base.

"Nice and casual! Moron!" Tucker yelled, taking off with him. Except they kept running in circles. I mean seriously, how hard was it to just run straight backwards? Apparently very hard is the answer. I sighed, but took pity on the two. I backed up as fast as I could, keeping my gun trained on the warthog, making sure the idiots got out before I turned and ran myself.

"This way!" I yelled at them, and they finally straightened out, running past me.

"Come on, Taylor." I heard Tucker call to me. I decided it was probably best I turn my back and run, even though having my back to a weapon didn't sit right with me.

Lopez didn't move through all of this. He was saying something in Spanish, and the words popped up at the bottom of my vision, but I couldn't read them and run away and make sure I didn't get shot.

Stopping what was probably not a safe distance away from the warthog, The three of us turned around just in time to see Lopez about to be hit by the large, army jeep. I tilted my head, trying to figure out what was going on, because really I would remember if the Reds ran over Lopez. Surely, I would. But if they don't do that, then what did the do? Stop? Sarge would never stop when faced with such an easy blue target.

They were just a few feet before Lopez, not slowing down at all. They were really going to-

BOOOOOOOM

I flinched, taking a step back without even thinking about it. The warthog had just exploded, like it was hit by an roadside IED, and it had pitched forward and sending Simmons and Sarge flying forward. The whole thing completely missed Lopez.

I felt pressure on my right arm, glancing over I saw an aqua color hand gently squeezing my bicep.

I never told Tucker what had happened to me back home, obviously I couldn't, but I didn't even try and get close to the truth. I just ignored it. Tucker saw when I struggled sometimes, and he had asked me about it a few times in the past three months. I brushed it off, every time, and he let me. So every now and then, when I reacted badly to the fighting around us, Tucker would put his hand on my arm. Just for a few seconds, and I like to think he was letting me know he had my back when he did it. It helped, too. Of course, just like in the past, his hand moved away after a few seconds and neither of us would bring it up. We just kept on going.

And right now that meant running forward and seeing how Lopez was.

"Lo siento, padre." Lopez said as we approached him, "I'm sorry, father." was the caption associated with it.

"Alright! Not bad, robot dude!" Tucker told him, either oblivious to or not really caring about how Lopez clearly looked distressed over what just happened.

"I knew he would save us. I knew it! Robot people always like me. ..It's because of my awesome dancing."

As Lopez talked once more, the caption appeared. This was pretty much exactly like watching RVB now. He said his "spirit is broken. My people have betrayed me and now all is lost. Do with me what you will…"

"Yeah, okay, man. Can you just shut up and fix our tank?" Tucker said.

"Dancing time!" Caboose said, and he started making noises to go along with some music only he could hear. I sighed, not much else I could do. Lopez spoke up, thinking Caboose was trying to mock him, pretending to be a robot.

"No, he is just a bad dancer." I told Lopez.

"se puede entender lo que estoy diciendo?" Lopez asked. "You can understand what I am saying?" The caption read. Before I could say anything about the translator in the helmet, Church faded into existence.

"Hey! Who blew me up with that grenade...and what the hell happened here?" Church looked around, taking in the destroyed jeep, the Reds on the ground ten feet away, and Lopez in the center. It was quite a sight. Oh course, Caboose wanted to be the one to explain it.

"Well, you see, Tucker threw the grenade in the teleporter, and then we caught the robot. Then the reds came to blow us up, but Mr. Robot stopped them by blowing them up. With. His. Mind." Rather than responding to him, Church looked to me for clarification.

"No, yeah, that about sums it up, actually." I asked, thinking over what Caboose said. He nailed that one pretty well.

"Alright, alright. Uh, Taylor, watch Lopez. Tucker, Caboose, with me. Don't let him get away this time"

"Yes, sir." I said automatically. Ugh, that 'Sir' was going to go to his head. Sighing knowing there was nothing I could do about it now, I raised my weapon and trained it on Lopez's leg. He was a robot, not really a way to kill him, so I would slow him down if the need arose.

"traicionado por mi padre , no es de confianza por el enemigo. ¿lo que me va a pasar?"

:betrayed by my father, not trusted by the enemy. what will happen to me?:

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. Man, the shit that happens to Lopez. Here I was, trying to save everyone, and I completely overlooked Lopez up until now. How did he even become just a head? Three months here, and the information was slipping from my head. I had wrote down what was important, sure. Lopez losing his body was not one I thought was important, apparently. How wrong was I.

"I can't say what will happen." I finally said, my voice void of all the emotion I was feeling. I lowered my weapon, but didn't holster it just yet. Technically, I had yet to lie. I just wasn't oversharing. Everyone hates an oversharer.

"Alright, we have discussed what has happened, and figured out an offer." Church called out, walking back to join us, officially ending my conversation with Lopez.

"Si?"

"Alright, this is the deal, Mister Robot. You fix our tank, we'll let you go free."

I hear Caboose whispering to Tucker, both of which were standing a few feet back, meaning Caboose wasn't really whispering.

"I thought the plan was to trick him into fixing the tank and then Church will take over his body again when he is done."

"Yeah, but you don't tell the person you're tricking what's going on Caboose." Tucker explained,

"So, if I'm the one being tricked, then you would not tell me what is really going on?!"

"Why would we trick you?"

"Oh, I think you know." Caboose said. I glanced over at Tucker to see him shaking his head.

:Where will I go? Even my friends have tried to kill me.: Lopez said, hanging his head. Church didn't bother trying to translate.

"Okay, I'm gonna take that as a yes and let you get busy with the tank fixing."

"No tengo casa." Lopez sighed, and I didn't the translator to know what he said. He spoke in a robotic voice, and yet you could hear the sorrow and pain. He wasn't just a robot, and everyone forgot that. Including me. Lopez, somehow, was sentient. That was clear in the show, but this? This was heartbreaking. I had helped Church control him. My stomach turned at the thought of Lopez being controlled, by my involvement. He just moved up on my help list.

Church held up his gun and led Lopez over to our tank. This probably wouldn't take that long, Lopez was a mechanically genius.

So for an hour I watched Lopez fix Shelia, making sure he didn't pull any tricks as he did, not that he did before. Just a precaution. Tucker had decided now would be a good time to lay down, while Caboose would not stop hopping up and down. A whole hour of him just jumping. Didn't even pause once so far. Church had left in the beginning, claiming he needed to recharge, but now he was back, and it looked like Lopez was almost done.

"Hurry hurry hurry, fix the tank!" Caboose said, and he actually stopped bouncing. Oh thank god, that shit was annoying. " So that I can say hello to Sheila." Caboose's voice changed, and O'malley creepily added "And start killing everyone!"

Tucker looked at me, and I shrugged. "You mean all the Reds, right?" He asked.

"Of course!" Caboose said, "For starters…" O'Malley added, looking right at me. A shiver crawled up my spin. I pulled out my gun again, and just holding it made me feel a bit safer. That, and making sure to never have my back turned to Caboose/O'Malley again.

"Come on, how much longer, Lopez?" Church asked.

"Completo." Lopez answered, jumping down from the tank and stepping back. As soon as he did, Sheila started up, welcoming us with her usual greeting.

"Thank you for activating the M808V Main Battle Tank."

"Sheila! You're fixed! You're fixed!" Caboose said, running up closer to her.

"Hello, Private Caboose. It is good to see you again. Thank you for repairing me."

"He didn't fix you. Our robot did it." Tucker told her.

"Don't cock block me!" O'Malley said. I snorted, I couldn't help it. I mean, where was he supposed to put it? Her tank gun? He would get his dick blown off.

"Robot? I wasn't aware that our squad was outfitted with a robot." Sheila said, moving the tank gun down and aiming, or looking I guess, at Lopez. He lifted his head and made, uh, eye contact? with her? Yeah, this was the weirdest thing I have seen here.

"I don't like where this is going." Caboose quietly said next to me.

"Hello there. My name is Sheila. The M808V Main Battle Tank."

"Y estoy López, la pesada ."

"What did he tell her?" Tucker whispered to me.

"That he is Lopez, the heavy." I told him. Tucker snorted, and focused back on the weird love scene in front of us.

"Lopez, what a nice name for such a nice soldier. You have such excellent motor skills."

"Umm, yes! Well, Lopez has to go now. He was just here to help me fix you and now he has to go AWAY." Caboose yelled, getting more upset as whatever the fuck this was progressed.

"Dude, this is getting weird. Church, will you take your fucking body back?" Tucker asked.

"Roger that."

Church walked over to Lopez, and kept walking right into him. "No! Heauegerkergerk!" Lopez's body twitched, and then seemed to shut down.

"You okay in there, Church? Church, hey what's going on? Do I need to flip your switch?" Tucker asked, getting right in his face. Except Church reappeared right next to us, my body moving my weapon to target him, then aiming it at Lopez as soon as I realized Church was not in him. I pulled Tucker back, moving so I was in front. Lopez had yet to turn around yet, and I had a pretty good idea who was in there, but better safe than sorry was always a good motto to have in war.

"What the-? That wasn't me. What the hell's going on here?" Church asked, looking around. We all watched as Lopez turned around, and revealed just what I thought.

"Well, buenos dias, cockbites. Guess who's back?" Tex's voice rang out.

"Finally!" I practically cheered, throwing my hands up, weapon included, before realizing it was still in my hand. I holstered it, and I could feel the stress I didn't even know I had leave me. I felt like I could breath again, a weight had been lifted from me. I had help now, not to knock Tucker and Church, but I had reliable, skilled, help with O'Malley.

Tex was giving me a weird look, clearly not sure why I was so relieved to see her. Or maybe it was because I had expected to see her. Tex was a lot more observant and stubborn then the other guys here, I would have to be way more careful if I was going to keep my secret.

Church was not as happy with the return of his girlfriend as I was. No, instead he demanded that she leave his body. Seriously, that's the first thing you say to the girl you love after you both come back as ghosts? Dumb ass.

"Your body? This isn't your body, I stole it." Tex said slowly, as if explaining it to a three year old.

"Yeah, but I stole it first!"

"I am confused. I thought your name was Lopez. And I thought you were a man. This is all so strange. I feel like my circuits are crossed.. and I like it!" Sheila said, not really to anyone.

"Four words, don't ask, don't tell." I told her.

"I know how to get her out of there." O'Malley said. He raised his pistol, aiming for Lopez/Tex. Someone grabbed me from behind before I even moved. I tensed, ready to fight that person AND Caboose, but saw the familiar aqua color scheme on the hands that held me. So I stayed put.

"Caboose, don't." Church said, and Caboose begrudgingly lowered his weapon. I relaxed too, but Tucker still didn't let go as Church talked. "Look, just go explain to Sheila, okay?" Caboose actually did as he was told, but I guarantee he isn't explaining it right. "Alright, Tex, now what's it gonna take to get you out of there?" Church did a double take at us, and Tucker finally seemed to realize he was still holding me, and I didn't break his arms off. He stepped away and I saw him rubbing the back of his neck, pointedly not looking at me. At least he wasn't angry? Or, gross out? Or whatever his problem was with me?

"Well ever since I've been a ghost, I've been watching you guys a lot." Tex slowly explained. This got Tuckers attention.

"Whoa, when you say you've been watching us, does that mean you've been watching us all the time? Like even when we're alone?"

"Yes, Tucker, and you should be VERY ashamed of yourself."

"..It's very lonely out here…" Tucker grumbled to himself.

"Anyway, I've noticed a change in one of your guys. Caboose." Tex said. I tensed, as I'm sure Tucker did. I double checked and saw that yes, Caboose was still talking to Sheila. I shifted a bit so that he would always be in the corner of my eye while this conversation happened. Church remained oblivious, like he does about most things.

"A change? Like what? He's finally learned the whole alphabet?"

"You haven't noticed that he's become increasingly aggressive lately?" Tex asked.

"I have! Started about the same time Sheila got disabled and you got blown up. I tried to tell Church but he never listens." Tucker chimed in. I turned and gave him an "oh really look", he ignored that too.

"Tucker, there's a very fine line between not listening and not caring. I like to think that I walk that line every day of my life." Church said.

"Amen." I added. "Now, Tex, let's hear your story."

"I had just finished repairing the tank when I overheard Church's plan to warn the Reds about me. From what I could tell, the A.I. calculated the odds of survival and didn't like the results. Once Caboose turned on his radio to call Church, it took its chance.

" And that's when he said his name was O'Malley, not Michael. So the A.I. that was in you infected Caboose?" Tucker said. Was he acting? I mean, we literally just had this conversation. Did...did he think I was lying? Wait, he said Caboose real name, so he did remember.

"Right, everyone's armor has one slot for A.I. and Caboose's would've been vacant." Church said. If everyone had a slot, then why did freelancers have to have theirs implanted? To make them more permanent? To give them a better connection?

"I think there are a few of his NON-artificial slots that are empty too." Tucker said.

"Anyway." I prompted, hoping Tex would move this along.

"And before I could figure out what happened, that bitch hit with a really lucky shot! And the next thing I know.. I'm a ghost."

"Alright, I get it. Caboose has your precious little A.I. So let me guess, you're holding my body hostage until I help you get your A.I. back, right?"

"Wrong. You're gonna help me kill it."

"Whoa. Kill it? You sure? Won't it, like, fight back?"

"Yes Church, it will. Unlike you when Shawn Cadnety got pissed at you for kissing his girlfriend in high school, and pant's you in front of the whole school during a grifball game."

"What? That so didn't happen." Church's voice was two octaves higher than usual.

"Boxers or Briefs?" I asked.

"Briefs." Tex said.

"Huh."

"Well Tex, that was a great story. I especially liked the part about Church getting pants'd in high school." Tucker said.

"I found that part to be entirely out of context." Church cut in. Tucker just ignored him and kept talking.

"But I still don't get how we're supposed to stop the AI."

"I don't remember much from the implantation process. I do remember that the AI can be transmitted from host to host by way of the helmet radios. Before I learned anything else, the AI took over and we escaped. If we can kill the AI and not give it a place to jump, we'll beat it." Tex told us. How much of that was true, at least to her memory, and how much was complete bull? That was the real question here, and that's how I would get my answers. What was real, and what was not? Clearly, Church's want for his body was real, because that seemed to be the only thing he could focus on.

"And then I can have my body back. Deal?"

"Deal." Tex told him.

"Alright. Tex and I will possess Caboose then. Tucker, we need you to work on the Reds. Get 'em to turn off their helmet radios so that O'Malley won't have anywhere to go once we get him out of there."

"Right." Tex added.

"What?! How the hell am I gonna do that?" Apparently Tucker did not agree with this plan. I didn't like it too much either. It was literally what I have been trying to not do. But there wasn't much of a choice right now. I didn't figure out anything else that would stop Caboose from getting hurt AND lead everyone where they needed to go, besides just warning Tex not to fire live ammo inside a persons head, which you think would be a no brainier to begin with.

 _Ha. No brainier. Oh that is so bad._

"I don't know. Come up with a plan." Church told Tucker.

"Come on, you know how I feel about plans."

"You're not gonna have much time once we get in there, so move fast." Tex warned.

"Oh, I see. You have no idea what I should do or how I should do it, but whatever I do I should do it fast?" Tucker sarcastically said. He was tense, probably because his CO just told him to stroll right into enemy lines and just politely ask them to turn off their radios.

Church and Tex both gave a yep to his statement.

"Wow, you guys are a lot of help."

"Try shifting your paradigm. Think outside the box." Church 'helpfully' suggested. Tucker just shook his head.

"Hey, the box is there for a reason. I like thinking inside of it. I feel safe in there."

"Okay, Tex, ladies first."

Tex snorted. "Yeah right! You think I'm gonna leave you alone out here with your body?"

Church muttered a bitch, and then focused his attention on the man they were about to posses. "Hey, Caboose!"

Caboose turned around, giving a little "huh?" as he did. Church called out heads up and ran right for Caboose, disappearing as he collided with his armor.  
"Don't shoot inside Caboose" I called out, Tex's nod as she followed after my only clue that she heard. Shit shit shit, she was totally going to shoot inside his head. This was just another thing I couldn't stop.

Red. Vs Blue: 3 Taylor: 0


	13. Aftermath, with Biology

Tucker and I stared at Caboose, who was as still as a statue, for a good minute. Eventually both of us looked at each other, then back towards Caboose. What the hell do we do with him now?

"Caboose, are you okay, buddy?" Tucker asked, moving forward slowly as if Caboose were an animal that might run off when frightened. Actually, that pretty much is what Caboose is on a normal day. Today? Probably doesn't even know we're still here.

"This place is a lot bigger than I thought it would be." Caboose said in a monotone voice.

"O-kay." Tucker turned back to me. "What the hell is going on?"

"Where should we start, Tex?" Caboose said.

"What?" Tucker asked.

"I think he is saying what Church is saying. Ya know, inside." I said. It was a bit unsettling to actually see it. The idea that someone could essentially take over your body was not one I was at all comfortable with. I mentally shook off the chill creeping up my spine.

"Well, I guess we should get going." Tucker said. He started walking towards Sheila, and turned back after a moment when he realized I didn't move. "What are you waiting for? Come on."

I hesitated for only a second. "You go."

"And leave you here?" He asked, walking back towards me.

"Someone has to protect Caboose."

"Yeah, but Church said-"

"Church told you to go. He didn't tell me to do anything."

"So you can come too. Caboose will be fine here, all the reds are back at their base. Nothing's gonna happen to him."

I knew Tucker was right, nothing does happen to Caboose, but I really didn't want to go with him. On the other hand, he was the one who was going into enemy territory with no real backup.  
Seeing my hesitation, Tucker tried one final thing to convince me, except it wasn't what I was expecting.

"I want you."

My mind stuttered to a halt, I heart skipping a beat as I choked out a pathetic "what?"

"To come. Uh, not like that, well yeah like that. Bow chika bow wow. But I mean to the base. Red base. With me." Tucker said, his words just tumbling out of his mouth in one jumbled mess. I stared at him, trying to process what he said. When it finally clicked, laughter burst from my mouth.

"Yeah, sure." I said still laughing. "Lets just go."

Tucker nodded, walking once again towards the other side of the canyon, muttering "Man, I sure hope they don't totally freak out when they see us coming."

"Dude, you're bringing a tank, of course they will freak out."

"Well, maybe if we hide one of us, ya know, in the tank. Then there will be less of us to freak them out."

"The tank. The tank is what will freak them out." I said, but Tucker didn't seem to be listening now.

"I'm gonna get in and drive the tank. You and Lopez walk besides it." Tucker barely finished speaking before he was scaling the side of the tank, pulling on the cage, trying to get it to open. Trying and failing. He groaned as he put all his weight into it.

"Sheila, open driver canopy please." I said, before he ended up hurting himself, or Sheila.

"Affirmative." Sheila flung open the canopy, probably more forcefully than necessary, and Tucker flew backwards off the tank, screaming.

And landing right on me.

"Ow," I groaned from underneath his body.

"Usually the ladies are moaning something else when they're beneath me. Bow chicka- ow hey!"

I had smacked Tucker upside the head, half to get him to shut up and half so he would get off me faster. It seemed to have to opposite effect, because as soon as I had done it Tucker shifted on top of me, grabbing both my hands and pinning them above my head.

"That wasn't very nice, Taylor." Tucker's voice dropped a few octaves, and I suppressed the shiver that wanted to travel from the tip of my spine down to my toes.

"Hunter." I said. Tucker didn't say anything so I kept talking. "My name. It's Hunter...Lavernius."

Tucker let go of my hands, rolling off me in the next second. He didn't even offer to help me up, just walked straight over to Sheila and climbed inside. I slowly stood up, dusted off my armor, and waited for everyone to move forward a few feet before I followed after the small caravan making its way towards red base.

 _What. The. Fuck._

Tucker seemed to be all over the place. Like we were in fucking high school all over again. I took a breath and tried to remember that this Tucker, he was young, and inexperienced. He knows nothing.

 _You know nothing, Jon snow. Ha. I miss watching game of thrones. Now I'll never know how it ends. Damn._

I had to focus, not be thinking of Tucker or TV. I had a limited amount of time before O'Malley would be hopping out of Caboose and into...doc…

Oh my god how was I supposed to make sure this went to plan? Why was Doc even on the radio in the first place? It took no time for us to be too close to red base for my liking, and no matter how much I racked my brain, I had no fucking clue what was supposed to happen right now. Tucker spoke up than, breaking me from my internal struggle.

"Okay well, looks like we're close enough. Now if I could just find the brakes on this thing. Ah, must be this button."

"Do not touch that button." Sheila said.

"Oh, sorry. Hmm, maybe it's this one?"

"Do not touch me." Sheila spoke again. I snorted.

"You know, for a girl your size you're really sensitive."

"No need to be rude, Tucker." I said. "Shelia, will you please stop?"

"Of course."

"Thank you."

"Of course the two of you stick together." Tucker loudly complained.

"Tucker, I would think long and hard about the next thing that comes out of your mouth." I said. A few seconds when by, Tucker staring at me the whole time. Did I finally figure out how to shut him up? I thought back on my words and sighed.

"Just say it-"

"Bow chika bow wow."

"Just get out of there. You're lucky I asked sheila to stop. With the rate of success you had, you would have run over their jeep and then they would have thought we were attacking." I gestured towards their warthog, and noticed distinct lightish red and orange armored men making a run for their base. Which apparently no one else noticed. These people are blind. Well, technically two were robotic intelligence systems, which actually makes the fact that they failed to notice the two enemy soldiers even worse.

"Alright. Lets hack into their radios and ask them to shut it off, then go back to our base." Tucker said once he was standing next to me, outside of the tank.

"That's your plan?" I asked.

"You got a better one?"

"How do we hack their signal?"

Tucker turned towards Lopez. Of course.

"And what if asking them to turn off the radio doesn't actually work?"

"I have a plan B."

I sighed. In the show, Tucker obviously got them to turn off the radio, so whatever plans he has, one must work. Tucker turned to address Lopez.

"Okay Lopez, get inside Sheila and do your business."

"What?" Sheila said while the translation for Lopez that popped up on my visor simply said "I am getting very sweaty."

"Oh my God. Remind me to hose you two off when we get back to base." Tucker grumbled.

"Just be respectful Lopez, and Sheila, be patient."

"Affirmative"

Slowly, Lopez climbed into Shelia, stuttering out apologizes in spanish the whole time. Why he needed to be in her to hack the signal I have no idea. Maybe Tucker was being a wingman here or something.

Deciding that it was best if one of us kept watch, I turned my focus and my back on the scene behind me and surveyed the base in front of us. Four enemies on top of the base, all hostiles accounted for and not even paying attention. Hostiles was probably the wrong word in this case. Frenemies was more like it.

"The radio has been hacked." Lopez's monotone voice filled the air.

"Uh, what?" Tucker said.

"He said the hack is done." I explained.

"Oh, good. Alright Hello Red guys. Red guys, are you there?" Tucker said. I didn't hear any response, my radio being turned off and it staying that way. After a few second pause, Tucker spoke again.

"It's me Tucker, I'm one of the blue guys. Look I don't have time to explain, but I need all of you guys to shut off your radios right now."

Another pause. I looked towards the soldiers on top of red base, who seemed to be doing nothing to stop the blue soldier who got into their private, secure, radio.

"Look, it's really important alright? Normally I'd just shoot at you guys and steal your girlfriends but today's different. I need you to trust me on this."

I snorted. More like I would be doing the shooting. After a few more seconds Tucker let out a curse.

"Let me guess, they don't take orders from blues?" I said dryly.

"Apparently not. Lopez, looks like we're gonna have to go to Plan B."

While I asked what plan B was, Lopez jumped out of sheila and onto the radio. Then, he started singing that horrendous love song. Wide eyed I watched lopez as his monotone robotic voice busted out what was sure to never be a hit track, while he shifted from foot to foot, wringing his hands. Ever seen a nervous robot? Then the yelling could be heard from Red base, probably from their ears bleeding. I couldn't help it any longer, I doubled as I laughed my ass off. I had completely forgotten about this song.

Tucker shouted that it worked, I got control over my laughter, and Lopez stopped singing.

"Turn off your radios! Quick!" Tucker reminded us. I double checked mine just in case, and found it still off. Lopez got back into Shelia and I assumed he helped turn off her radio, although why she couldn't do it herself was beyond me.

No one said a word as we all waited. For what? I had no idea.

"Is this it? Did it work?" Tucker asked.

"Well does anyone feel like they have been infected by a homicidal AI?" I asked. Two no's and a negative was the response. "Then I think we should head back to base before the Reds attack, maybe Church and Tex will be waiting."

With everyone in agreement, we headed back to base.

 **OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

This whole day was long, and I was ready for a shower and a bed. Like immediately. I knew that, if everything went to plan, O'Malley would be out of our hairs for hopefully a week, a few days if our luck was bad. So upon arriving back at base I was not expecting to be confronted by Church, who appeared out of fucking nowhere when I was about five feet away from the base.

"Where the hell have you been Taylor?"

"I take it everything went okay?"

"I'm asking the questions around here, so again, where the hell have you been?

"Well Mr. Grumpy pants, I was providing backup to the team you sent in to shut off the enemy's radio." I said, crossing my arms.

"The tank. The tank was the backup. Meanwhile Caboose, and therefore I, was left unprotected back at base." Church seemed actually pissed that I wasn't here when he left Cabooses head. But him and Tex were fine, I knew they would be. Speaking of, there was a few people missing out here.

"Where is Caboose and Tex?" I asked.

"Caboose is in the base taking a nap. I'm not sure where Tex is. I was going to tell you to go look for her, but instead I had to look for you." His voice was that barely keeping control angry inflection that was actually worse than if the person just yelled. Damn, he was extra pissed. Just cause Tex left though, or something else?

"The AI?" I asked, figuring the AI's escape would be the only other thing pissing him off.

"Dead, I think." Ya, no, but you keep thinking that buddy. Also crossed out that being the thing making him mad. So it was just Tex. Nothing to worry about too much.

"Well then mission success. I suggest we go in the base and celebrate." I said and took that as my opportunity to go inside. I was going to have my nice long shower, go to sleep, and not think about how weird Tucker was today. Nope, not gonna think on it at all.

The two followed in behind me, and I zoned into their conversation when Church mentioned Tex and her disappearance.

"Is it unusual for Tex to just disappear like that?" Tucker asked as we all reached the inside living portion of the base. I saw Caboose on the couch, taking the whole thing up, snoring slightly.

"When we were dating, she'd sneak off all the time. But it was usually to sleep with other guys, or to spend money that she'd taken out of my wallet. And since I don't have any money, and… well, no offense to you, Tucker, but…" Church said.

"You're a dick."

"You both are. Goodnight." I told them, and rounded the corner to the hallway, going right to my room, shutting and locking the door. Like it would keep Church out. Like it would keep everything out.

Tomorrow was a new day, and maybe I could help then.


	14. Negotiator Incentive

When I woke up, it was to peace. No yelling from Tucker or Caboose, no ghost in my room, not even a alarm since I woke up a few moments before it was set. Yeah, this was nice. I laid there, counting as I breathed. Three seconds in, hold for three, out for three.

So what, I was stuck in another universe. The way my life was heading before this wasn't that interesting anyway. And so what if my crush on a guy here went south, or sideways, or whatever the hell happened there. Plenty of other fish in the sea here. Eventually. Like later on, two years from now later. It was looking like I could maybe salvage some weird friendship out of this thing.

And so what if there was a homicidal AI out there hell bent on taking over the world and all the inhabitants. I could sit back and not change a thing, and everything would happen to plan. I could just lay in this bed. And eventually, everything would work out in the end.

Ha. Like I would really be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try.

Groaning as my muscles protested the movement I got out of bed and got dressed in basic workout gear. It was time to go for my morning run. I vaguely made note of the still unconscious/sleeping Caboose on the couch as I walked past. Does he wake up soon? I hope so. I decided that if he isn't awake by noon by himself I'll make sure he wakes up. Ice cold water should do the trick.

After my run I went to the workout area. Beat the shit out of some punching bags, worked with some holographic hand to hand target system, which was bad ass, and stretched. Seriously though that holographic combat training might just be the coolest thing here.

I finally heard signs of life from others as I made my way back to my room. Caboose was gone from the couch, Hopefully to bed but more likely he was getting ready for the day. As I walked by Tucker's room I heard a loud thud accompanied by a curse. Probably tripped over his armor again.

Shower, get dressed, put on armor. I took my time, inspecting each piece as it went on my body. By the time I made it out to the kitchen, it seemed I was the last one, if the new dirty dishes in the sink were anything to go by. I ate a bowl of cereal quickly, threw on my helmet, and made my way to the outside of the base.

And stumbled onto a familiar, but not good, conversation.

"...Who are you?" Caboose asked Church.

"Oh, come on! Not this again! How can you seriously not remember me?"

"Oh, of course! I remember you… you're Marvin!"

"I'm Church!" Caboose took a few seconds, really trying to think through what Church just practically yelled at him, but finally said "I think I would remember a name that ridiculous. Nope, you are definitely Phil."

"This is what you get for shooting your gun while inside his head, Church." I said, but no one listened to me. Looks like no one took my advice, but I didn't they would listen anyway. If I wanted things changed here I had to do them myself.

"You killed me with the tank." Church kept on trying to get Caboose to remember, to little avail.

"Dave!" Ya know, at least he was saying male names.

"You insulted my girlfriend. You called her a cow."

"Karen!" Never mind.

"Dude, he called her a slut." Tucker chimed in.

"Phineous?"

"Your whole life is based around pleasing me." Church said.

"Wally."

"In fact, I think you're kind of obsessed with being my best friend."

"Milo?" Caboose said, then turned towards Tucker and I "Psst. The new guy is pretty full of himself."

"New guy? What the- I'm not the new guy. You're the new guy!"

"I don't know. I kinda like it. I could get used to calling you Rookie." Tucker said.

"Rookie" I said, pretending to think about it, "Yeah, I think I could too."

"Oh, yea? Could you get used to me beating you to death?"

"You and what body?" I asked. Tucker held up a fist. I didn't even hesitate to bump it. Just a normal friendship, I could do this.

Meanwhile, Church's whole 'body' seemed to be vibrating with rage, and I wasn't the only one to notice.

"Psst. What's wrong with the rookie? He seems mad." Caboose asked us.

"Oh, son of a bitch!" Church yelled.

"Susan?"

"Everyone just go patrol, alright?" Church said.

"Anywhere in particular, or?" I asked, biting my lip to keep the smile off my face. Pissing people off is just a little more fun than it really should be.

"Just GO!" He said, walking away to a vantage point on the canyon wall.

Tucker, Caboose, and I all went to the easiest patrol area, since he didn't really tell he where to go specifically, and it also allowed up to see a 360 view of the area around our base. Great for seeing the enemy coming, bad coverage for when they do show up. The odds of actually getting hit by the enemy even up there were very slim though.

In short, we all went to the roof.

For the first hour or two, no one really said anything. It was all a lot of standing around, doing nothing, with the occasional "This is bullshit." "This blows" type of complaints. Only, this time there were the added "No, no get away from her." and "What are you telling her, gibberish man?" and similar complaints quietly from Caboose, until finally I went to see if Tucker noticed what was going on in this weird love triangle or if I was the only one.

"You seeing what I've been seeing for the past two hours?" I asked Tucker.

"Yeah, man, Lopez and Sheila have been spending a lot of time together."

" I don't like it. He is not good enough for my Sheila." Caboose said.

"But they seem happy together." Tucker said.

"He is a bad influence and he is taking advantage of her because she is young and naive...and delicate."

"Delicate? She weighs like 200 tons, dude."

"She is a precious flower."

"Riggghht." I said, then quietly to Tucker, "You wanna break up the two over there or should I?"

"No I'll go." Tucker replied, and immediately jumped down from the roof.

Caboose and I watched Tucker make his way over to Lopez and Sheila, just barely able to hear what was being said, and even then it was only every few words.

" Hey guys, I have … favor. ….sound strange, but I think Caboose …. jealous of …."

"Sheila! Come back to me! I made you a muffin!" Caboose yelled, and man did it take a lot of effort not to flinch back when he did. I didn't realize he could be so loud. And what muffins was he talking about?

"... just try to keep ….We don't want ... love triangle."

"Tucker, I've ... machine has ...unfairly…" I struggled to hear what was going on. Tuckers "What are you talking about" was pretty clear. Then I couldn't hear anything. What was happening down there?

When Sheila's barrel of her Tank lowered, pointing directly at Tucker's head, my heart stopped as I was flooded with the memory of what was going on now. Robo revolution. Fucking A.

My gun was raised without a question, but then I had to determine who to aim at. Lopez seemed like the only option currently. I mean what good would a bullet do to a tank.

I ran through a few scenarios in my head of what I could do. Tucker obviously doesn't get his head blown off by her, so maybe he talks his way out of this? Who am I kidding he doesn't talk his way out of anything. I can't stop anything from happening, not from this distance, probably not even from up close.

I was about to just run in, saying fuck it and hope I could save Tucker anyway, when Sheila raised her barrel away from him. I let out a small sigh of relief as I saw him sprinting away, towards the spot on the canyon wall we saw Church float towards a while ago.

"Well Caboose, looks like Sheila isn't interested in leaving Lopez right now."

"Shelia NO!" Caboose cried out, and fell to his knees. Was… Was this some sort of dramatic love moment for him? Yikes.

"It'll be okay buddy. There are more fish in the sea." I said patting his back.

"The sea is empty. All the fishermen came and took the fish away." Caboose cried, burying his helmet into his hands. Biting my tongue before the "I feel ya, man" left my mouth, I decided I should say something to cheer him up.

"Why don't you go have a cookie. It will make you feel better Caboose." Sniffling, he nodded.

"Thank you, Taylor. You always know what to say." He said, then took off to the kitchen.

That was probably the weirdest conversation I have ever had in my life, and unfortunately it won't be the last one. Seriously though what the fuck.

Seeing as I was now the only one left on Patrol, I took up looking out at the front entrance. Apparently just in time too, three guys headed our way. Except two were blue, and one was pink. And the pink guy was being lead back to this base at gunpoint by Tucker and Church.

God damn it Donut.

 **OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO OOOOO**

I swept the perimeter, making sure all the rest of the reds weren't around here, before going into the base to see what was up. In the time it had taken me to do a sweep, They had donut tied to a chair right near the flag in the upper levels of the base. All guns were out and pointed at him.

"Swept the perimeter. We're clear for now, but they'll be coming for him soon." I said. Donut paid me no mind, as to our previous agreement we had. In the field, we didn't know each other, but we wouldn't try to hurt each other either.

"Him? Don't you mean her?" Tucker said, then stepped closer to Donut. "So they send a female assassin to try and kill us. Clever, but it won't work. We're immune to your feminine wiles. ...Unless you wanna date one of us." Wait what?

" Female!? I'm not a girl." Donut said. Tucker let out a barely audible tease under his breath as Donut kept talking "I just have, light red armor."

"How is that pink armor anyway? Looks comfortable…" Caboose asked.

"At first, I really hated it. But it's kinda grown on me. My old armor used to chafe my thighs somethin' awful. But the crotch in this pink one is surprisingly roomy!"

"Silence woman!"

"Tucker! Caboose! Prisoners aren't for chatting up." I said.

"She won't tell us anything, she won't even admit she's a girl." Tucker said. I sighed.

"Tucker." I said slowly, "Donut here is a guy."

"And how would you know that?" Caboose asked. "Have you seen her naked?"

"She is a He." I said

"So you have seen her naked." Caboose said.

"No!" I threw my hands up in the air. "Just forget it. Someone want to actually ask some relevant questions? Like, I don't know, any secret plans the reds have?"  
"What secret plans do you reds have?" Tucker yelled at Donut.

"Secret plans? You mean my recipes? They aren't really a secret, so I guess I could share them. First you need a crockpot." Donut started listing a bunch of ingredients for what sounded like mac and cheese. This continued on for ten minutes before I left, Tucker following after me.

"Well that's useless." He said.

"Yeah, Church want us to do anything now?"

"Wait for him at the entrance, fill him in on what we know."

"I now know chicken will burn if you leave it in a crockpot too long without liquid. Somehow I don't think that's what we need."

As soon as Tucker and I got to the entrance, Church appeared.

"How's it goin', guys? We get any useful information outta the prisoner yet?"

"I figured he was here to steal back Lopez, but he won't give us anything... except a list of crock pot recipes. Would that be useful?" Tucker said.

"Do we have a crock pot?" Church asked.

"No, Caboose made a trade with that annoying guy from Blue Command. He swapped it for a mystery box."

"What was in the mystery box?"

"A Hundred and forty jars of mayonnaise."

I definitely should have stopped that trade from happening. We still had like 132 jars of it. It would have been for the greater good.

"Yeah... it doubles as a great sunscreen." Tucker said.

"How did you- never mind. Listen, I think I came up with a plan for how we can use Lopez and our new prisoner to get an upper hand on the reds…" There was a pause where Tucker and I must have been thinking the same thing "The plan does not involve mayonnaise." God damn it we will never get rid of that shit.

"Dammit, I knew there would be a catch." Tucker said.

"Just wait here, I just need to grab one more thing." Church said as he phased out of existence.

"At least you won't be going through the teleporter." I told Tucker.

"Don't even mention the teleporter. I don't want him to remember we have it." Tucker said.

A few minutes passed in mostly silence. Just as I thought Tucker was about to say something, we could hear two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs behind us. Turning, I saw those footsteps belonged to Donut and Caboose, no Church/Lopez in sight.

"Caboose, you're not supposed to let the prisoner run free!" Tucker said

"Guys, it's okay, it's me." Donut said. Wait a minute, did Church…? I couldn't even think it, let alone ask. Caboose spoke up.

"Yes we all know it's you Mr. Pink man."

"No, I'm me, Church!" Damn it that ass hole. What was wrong with him? Taking over someone's body like that. People aren't robots, and even now I felt bad at how Lopez was treated.

"Oh cool." Tucker said. Seriously?

"No, not cool. Church get out of him." I said, leaving no room for argument. How was everyone just alright with this?

"No," apparently there was room for argument, " I need a body to go negotiate with the Reds with. This body will do just fine- whoa Taylor no need to get hands. I'm pretty sure this guy doesn't swing that way anyway."

I had shoved Donut as gently as possible up against the wall, My arm across his shoulders, my hand grabbing his hand with a gun and holding it against the wall, gun pointed away from me.  
"Did you ask him before you took over his body? I don't think so. Get out of him." I snarled, pressing forward as hard as I dared.

"And what body would you have me take then when we negotiate with the Reds, huh?"

"I'll negotiate. Tell me what you want and I'll get it as long as you get out of Donut. Now." Church seemed to think through my offer.

"Is that a guarantee?"

"Within reason." I added. Last thing I need is for him to have me negotiation something I couldn't ever get. Like the Reds to give up their base. Or Sarge's shotgun. No one was getting that, not even out of his cold, dead, hands.

"Damn it. Fine." Church said. Donut went limp against the wall, the only thing keeping him from falling over was me. He seemed to spaz out for a second before looking around and tilting his head at me.

"What? Taylor why are you pushing me up against a wall? Did you not like my crock pot recipes?" I immediately let go of my grasp on Donut, Making sure he didn't fall over, muttering a quick apology.

"Caboose, why don't you take our prisoner back to where he was being kept before. Wait there with him, we will come get you in a few minutes."

"Okay!" Caboose said. "Follow me Mr. Pink man."

As soon as those two had turned the corner, Church appeared in between Tucker and I.

"So what is it you want?" I asked.

"Two robot shells with no AI," Oh. So this was that part of the show. I thought that would be later.

"Why do we need two robots?" Tucker asked.

"Ya know, one for me and, uh, one for Tex." Church said, muttering the last part to the point where you could barely hear it.

"Oh man, don't tell me you're doing this for Tex. You're still in love with her, aren't you." Tucker said.

"Hey get off my back, man. Most dead chicks aren't exactly linin' up to haunt this dirthole. Besides, if I don't get her a body, she's gonna steal mine anyway."

"Eh, good point."

"So two robot body's minus AI's it is."

"No Spanish either! And a bigger switch!" Church said. I nodded, that actually seemed like a good idea. The Spanish part, at least.

"So, we probably should bring Donut. Lopez?" I asked.

"Nah, the whole robot uprising thing seems a bit dangerous at the moment." Tucker said.

"Point. Caboose should stay too. Fewer people the less likely this will all go to shit. Now they probably are already making there way over here in an attempt to get there guy. Let's go before this turns into another surrender situation."

A few minute later, Tucker, Donut, and I were taking cover behind a hill, watching the Red team approach.

"Donut, you can't talk okay. I'll get you back with your squad, and you can tell them all about how you didn't give us anything later."

"Okay Taylor."

"Guys shhhs, here they come." Tucker said.

"Tucker, we want them to know we're here."

"Oh yeah." Tucker stood up before I could stop him and shouted to the Reds. "Hello inferior red squad!"

"Tucker get back down, they could still shoot." louder I said "We have captured two of your men and would like to negotiate their release back to you."

"So like surrender? Are you surrendering or are we?" Grif's voice came back

"You are." I called.

"This smells like a trap, or a rat… or a rat, in a trap. We can't accept this." Sarge said.

"No one can surrender blues, noone's attacked yet! Now, go home and wait for us to attack, then you can surrender." Simmons yelled. God these people. I'm gonna have to fight stupid with stupid here. While grif seemed to be debating the advantage of having two surrenders from us, I aimed my gun right above their heads and fired. The three of them ducked.

"There, now you are under attack, and you can surrender. In exchange for your surrender, and your men back, we have a demand."

Looking at them I could see Simmons and Sarge having a quiet conversation, Grif hopping around behind them. What was that about?

"I don't think they're going for it, Taylor." Tucker said.

"They will."

"What if you still say you surrender, but we give you your demands?" Sarge yelled.

"What no!" Tucker yelled. I elbowed him to stop him from saying more.

"You are not in a situation to negotiate. We fired first shot, and we have two of your men. Technically a surrender from you would also just make us even, with neither team having a technically advantage since we have one surrender."

There was more talking from the reds, and a bigger freak out from Grif.

"Let's say we surrender. What is it you want?"

"Two, fully functional Robot shells, like Lopez, except with no AI's and that can speak English. They will have all body parts and they will all be functional. " I hesitated for a second. Sarge adding the bomb wasn't something I forgot about this next part. Was that something I actually wanted to mess with? I think I have to keep it, at least for now, until I think through how it would play out without the bomb. Plus I think he adds a codeword to one robot, and I sort of want to know if he still will.

"Anything else?" Sarge asked in my silence.  
"I want to make it very clear." I said, "These robots should be fully functional-"

"You already said that!" Simmons called out.

"And I'm saying it again. There are no optional features when it comes to multifunctional movement, that is what fully functional means. There will be no upgrades or downgrades from Lopez, only small changes, which include English and no AI. We will be receiving these as payment for the return of you men."

"Okay, we got a deal! Meet us in the center of the canyon at 0600 and we'll make the exchange." Sarge said.

"Alright, guys. Let's go back to blue base. Looks like you'll be staying with us a little while longer Donut" I said.

"Are we going to have a sleepover? Because that would be sweet."

"Uh, talk to Caboose."


End file.
